


Then I Made A Map

by ShastaFirecracker



Series: Florence 'verse [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blindfolds, Breathplay, Contracts, Domestic Fluff, Edgeplay, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Rope Bondage, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sensory Deprivation, Sex Toys, Size Kink, Suspension, Temperature Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 11:27:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10661622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: Having taken the plunge into marriage, Dean and Cas buy a house together. With all their new space and privacy, they finally have the chance to try out some time-intensive scene ideas. A long weekend gives them the perfect opportunity...





	Then I Made A Map

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! So I started writing some domestic married PWP, realized partway into it that it would work just fine in the Florence 'verse, tidied it up to fit, and voila. There really isn't a plot here - like Breath That Carried Me, it is basically just a porny excuse for the boys to get all the comfort & love they'll never get in canon. See endnotes for specific kink stuff (& some behind-the-scenes) if you want to know before reading. Thanks!

_"I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map_  
_I knew that somehow I could find my way back_  
_Then I heard your heart beating; you were in the darkness too_  
_So I stayed in the darkness with you"_

\---

The house is small, and much further from campus than the apartment was. The bathroom faucet leaks, the windows are painted shut, and the kitchen floor slopes by a degree due to a sinking foundation – just enough that any liquid in a pan tends to pool on one side and heat unevenly.

But it's a _house_ , and the mailbox has little stickers on the side that spell out their address, followed by a big N-W. Castiel complains to Dean that it's _his_ last name's fault they can't fit the whole thing on the mailbox. Dean frowns and is concerned that somehow their mail will get mixed up because it looks like their address has an extra “northwest” on it. Cas rolls his eyes and says that, considering there is no “Northwest” Alyssum Street, he doesn't think it'll be too hard for the postal worker to figure it out.

It's a house. It's _their_ house. And bad paint jobs can be stripped, faucets replaced. Before they brought in furniture and belongings, they'd spent a week yanking up hideous mottled brown carpet to uncover a serviceable wooden floor. They'd sanded, stained, buffed, painted, and sealed until the only question each evening was which would knock them out first, the fumes or the exhaustion.

The floors are a rich gold-brown now, with a hint of shine. The kitchen is red, the bedroom pale blue, the living room a classic cream, every open bit of wall crammed with frames. The second bedroom is Claire's and has a dark blue ceiling covered with glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and lavender walls, and a net hammock tacked up into a corner of the ceiling which is filled to capacity with stuffed animals. The bathroom off the main hall is guest-friendly, mostly clear of signs of habitation except for the blinding splashes of color of Claire's hairsprays, herbal soaps, and accessory collection. The shower is small, purely functional.

A sliding glass door leads out into the tiniest sliver of back yard, which Anna, during a weekend visit, had helped them landscape. The little bit of soil they can claim as their own is now planted with cacti, lantana, and herbs. Anna also left them one of her smaller works of stained glass to hang above the garden: it's a Tree of Life motif in a circle, boughs and roots balanced at the top and bottom in exquisite shards of color, with a diamond-like prism of clear crystal in the center of the trunk.

The pale blue bedroom contains east-facing windows and the only doorway into the second bathroom, which has a luxuriously sized bathtub, where the showerhead is like an afterthought. Cas and Dean keep their bedroom door closed out of habit, and the master bathroom is just for them. The walk-in closet is also theirs alone, and they'd briefly debated putting a lock on the door. Ultimately they'd decided it was too much trouble, but they keep that door firmly closed as well. The couple of boxes of toys and accoutrements, above which hang several long coils of rope, a soft red leather flogger, and a pair of spreader bars, are absolutely for Dean and Cas' eyes only.

\---

A quiet Thursday evening finds Dean reading a sheaf of papers one last time in silence, gaze intent, mouth shaping the occassional faint word. Cas, across the table, doesn't quite look at him. Worry rises in Cas one last time, a tiny curling shoot breaking the orderly garden of his mind. He blinks long and slow, counting the seconds of his breath, and that's enough to pull the weed. His stomach settles.

Dean turns the third page, reaches the end of the last paragraph, and picks up the pen without hesitation. They've collaborated on this thing for a few weeks now, in no particular rush, adding and amending as things occur to them. It's a contract, technically, but the word sits like an ugly lump on Cas' tongue, heavy and formal and dark. So they're just calling it their agreement, for now, although in his head Cas sometimes thinks 'storyboard.'

What Dean wants: some kind of sensory deprivation, some kind of restraint, and to be completely removed from responsibility or control. What Cas wants: not to inflict serious, damaging pain, not to humiliate. Specifics take up the vast majority of the pages – all things they already knew about each other, but which seemed reasonable to write down, if they're doing this the right way. Might as well. It's not like they haven't done nearly all of this, in isolated bits and pieces.

This will be different, though. It's supposed to be.

Dean looks up at Cas, green through the faint fringe of blond lashes. Cas' heart stutters. Dean licks his bottom lip faintly and holds Cas' gaze for a beat too long, searching, and Cas bites the inside of his cheek.

“Tomorrow?” Dean asks, voice surprisingly steady.

“Saturday,” Cas says, and is amazed to find that he's just as calm.

Dean's mouth flickers into a smile, nervous and anticipatory, hungry and mischievous and happy. Cas bites a grin back, teeth worrying his lip, and has to duck his face to his hands to keep from laughing. He misses Dean signing the paper, but he hears the scribbling, and then the sheet's being pushed into his field of view, pen on top. He takes it up, flickers his eyes to Dean who is trying not to laugh, whose eyes are bright with how ridiculous they are. Cas coughs a laugh into his fist and signs the damn contract.

He pushes it away like an empty plate after a meal. “There,” he says unnecessarily.

“Fine,” Dean says, voice full of laughter. “Good.”

“Stop,” Cas says, biting his cheek.

“No,” Dean says. “You're gonna break first.”

“I won't. I will not.”

“This is so dumb,” Dean says, red flushing high on his cheekbones. “We're so dumb. Look at us.”

“Blushing virgins,” Cas mutters.

Dean cracks. He snorts out a loud guffaw and claps a hand over his mouth. Shoulders shaking, he squeezes his eyes closed against tears as Cas joins him in unrestrained, hysterical giggles.

“Contract,” Cas wheezes.

“No,” Dean huffs, “this is good, this is. How to do this shit.”

“I know, I know,” Cas says, wiping tears from the corner of his eye. “I'm glad we did this, I just. This is -”

“Nerves,” Dean agrees.

“Hysteria,” Cas amends.

“It'll be fine,” Dean says. “It's gonna be fun.”

Cas bites his lip, looking at Dean, shining. “It is,” he agrees.

Dean gives him a searching look. “For you, too,” he insists.

Cas huffs a last laugh, rolling his eyes. “Trust me, Dean,” he says.

“I plan to,” Dean says.

That stalls them. They look at each other for a minute. Cas finally leans over, puts his hand on Dean's cheek, and repeats, “Trust me.” Barely a whisper.

Dean kisses him.

\---

Wakefulness seeps over Dean's skin slowly on Saturday morning, like surfacing for a breath from a long drift under the sea. He takes a deep breath, eyes closed, and feels full of air and light and bliss. He's one being with the softness of the sheets, melted, his edges uncertain.

He lies still for so long that he almost drifts to sleep again. A movement behind him makes his mind bob back to the surface, and he cracks one eye, a 'good morning' barely formed on his tongue.

He only gets an instant of morning light and blur before darkness closes over his eyes again, in the form of a hand reaching around his face. It's accompanied by the familiar press of a long, warm body, and Dean grins.

Lips trail lazy kisses over the back of Dean's neck and towards his ear. After a moment, Cas raises his sleep-raspy voice. “I'll be your eyes today,” he says.

Something shivers through Dean's shoulders and trails up his spine, along the path a mouth had taken a moment before. He melts even further into the bed. He closes his eyes under Cas' hand, lashes brushing palm.

The hand vanishes. Behind him, Cas rustles around, making the mattress dip and tilt and bounce a little. Cas returns with a quick touch on Dean's shoulder before something soft and dark settles over Dean's face. Cas makes Dean tip his head up from the pillow a bit so he can ease the blindfold around.

That done, Cas settles back into the mattress behind him, sliding an arm around Dean's waist and hugging him close. Dean was expecting something more, for the play to really begin. Dozy, Cas murmurs, “There's all day to go yet,” as if he'd read Dean's mind. Dean huffs and rolls back into Cas' embrace.

\---

The second time Dean wakes, it's more sudden, but no less pleasant.

His midmorning dream had been of the steamy variety – they usually are, when he sleeps too long, or when he naps with other skin touching his own – but what really wakes him is the sudden shift onto his back. He flops over as though yanked. He opens his eyes reflexively, but only gets more blackness. His heart leaps for a moment before he remembers why.

There's an astonishing degree of disorientation just from the tiny flip over onto his back – for one thing, he has no idea how long he'd dozed off, so he has no idea what time it is, and not only can he not see the clock, he can't even quite figure out where the clock should be. But that's driven out of his mind instantly when a cavern of nuclear heat closes over his half-hard penis. He sucks in a sudden breath, confused but pleased – his vaguely-remembered dream had involved this, probably, and maybe he muttered something in his sleep that gave Cas the idea, or maybe Cas was just completely determined to get somnophilia to work for them one of these days. (A long history of mishaps might have soured any other person on the whole concept, but they just made Castiel more stubborn.)

And it's definitely working for Dean at the moment. He gives a happy, encouraging little moan, shifts his hips slightly to get comfortable, raises his arms and tucks them behind his head. This seems to be fine, because Cas doesn't stop or correct him, just takes advantage of Dean's semi-soft state for making it possible for Cas to fit Dean's entire shaft in his mouth.

As the minutes pass and Dean's breath grows choppier, he catalogues Cas' tricks. This, Dean feels sure, is not the way Cas gives head when his goal is to make Dean come. This is the way Cas gives head when he wants Dean to be gagging for it, weak in the knees, strung out, teased. And Dean doesn't want to go there yet. He has, as Cas has pointed out, all day. He needs to pace.

So he thinks unsexy thoughts and tries his damndest to lose the boner, which is impossible with Cas' velvety-hot tongue sliding languidly up and down the underside of the glans inside the closed vacuum of his lips. But he does stave off orgasm, or any inclination to struggle. He stays still, biting back all sound, until he must seem all but uninterested.

Cas finally slides off with a wet pop and gives Dean's stomach and chest a nice bit of attention, almost chaste little kisses and small circles caressed into skin. Dean vaguely recalls having shorts on when he went to sleep last night, and is impressed that Cas must have managed to ease them off while Dean slept. He moves his legs a bit but he can't feel them anywhere.

Apparently moving his knees up was too much. Cas immediately pushes them back down and rests a firm hand on Dean's thigh while he finishes working up to Dean's neck and jaw.

“Get used to it,” Cas says beneath Dean's ear, before cutting off any chance at a reply with insistent lips. His mouth tastes salt-sour and Dean shivers.

At length Cas pulls back, and Dean can almost visualize him sitting up and stretching. There's that pop one shoulder makes, and the punch of breath he lets out when he reaches his clasped hands way back behind him and then lets go. Dean feels a little itchy in the leg muscles from being held back from moving, and wishes he could do the same.

“Good morning,” Cas says, as if they're only just waking. “Sleep well?”

Dean supposes he's allowed to speak if he's asked a question. He licks his lips. “You know it,” he says.

Cas chuckles. “Any light coming through? Any vision at all?”

Dean had his eyes closed under the blindfold; he opens them and nothing changes. He shakes his head against the pillow.

“Good,” Cas says, voice low. The bed dips and suddenly he's leaning over Dean again, breath warm on Dean's forehead. He brushes his hand through Dean's hair possessively. “Repeat your soft safeties to me.”

Dean has to clear his throat a little before he can say, “Banana, or two taps.” It feels silly on his tongue, but they've found a few flaws in the colors-of-traffic-lights system – namely that the stammered beginnings of other words can sometimes sound like 'yellow' or 'red', and Cas can be nervy and stop at the barest hint of a false alarm. The immersion of several scenes had been broken that way, and while Dean will never, ever fault someone for being _too_ willing to stop, he does find it a little frustrating to lose the flow. He'd told Cas as much and they'd immediately dug into new words, considering and discarding all kinds of words from their everyday lives before realizing that that was useless – a safety needed to be something Dean would _never_ ordinarily say, not something familiar or comfortable.

Silly as the words might sound coming out of his mouth, Dean still likes their final choices. Dean personally hates bananas, and Cas is indifferent to them. The color matches the yellow of the traffic light system, and there's no way to mistake it for another word.

“Mm,” Cas agrees. “Hard safeties.”

“Poughkeepsie,” says Dean, a place he deeply and viscerally hates because it was the site of one of Dad's mini-abandonments in Dean's childhood, a set of sounds hard to mistake for anything else. “Tap out or flag.” Which is to say, endless frantic tapping, because if a hard limit's been reached Dean can't be expected to count his taps. The flag is a scrap of red fabric positioned somewhere near Dean's hand if he's otherwise immobilized and can't speak. If he grabs it, Cas stops. Period.

“Okay,” Cas says, kissing Dean's brow and temples and nose and mouth. “Time to get up.”

Dean's a little surprised, but amenable. He expected to be held here longer. But his erection's receding enough for his bladder to demand use of the equipment, and his stomach chooses that moment to growl. Cas laughs.

It's weird, being blindfolded for the tasks of an ordinary morning. Dean's been blindfolded plenty, of course, but not outside the context of play. He supposes that this, now, is technically not outside the context of play, but rather integrating non-bedroom activity into a scene. Ordinary domesticity, just under Cas' constant control. It's odd but not unpleasant. Cas holds his hand everywhere they go, although Dean pretty much knows the house by counted steps and can navigate it in the dark in the middle of the night. Cas puts his toothbrush in his hand but lets him find the toothpaste on his own and suss out putting the components together by feel. Dean gets toothpaste on his fingers and can't stop giggling through brushing his teeth, splashing his face, stumbling around to the toilet. He can hear Cas struggling not to laugh, too. For everyone's sake, Cas stands against Dean's back and aims for him. Dean feels exceedingly weird peeing with someone else's hand on his dick. Even Cas says, “I may need to rethink the timing of the blindfold until _after_ breakfast.”

Dean snorts. “What, not having fun?”

Cas smacks his ass. He doesn't suggest that Dean get dressed, or hand him any clothes.

There's toast and eggs and bacon and coffee. Cas can't hold Dean's hand through making it all, so he orders Dean to sit on the counter and be still. The smooth stone countertop is a strangely sensual feeling against Dean's bare ass. He leans back on his hands, rolling his hips slightly to get more skin on the stone, and Cas says, “Stop that, I'll be scrubbing this counter forever.”

“My ass is perfectly hygienic,” Dean says, wriggling, and Cas shuts him up with a piece of toast unexpectedly shoved into his mouth.

Eating isn't that difficult blind, but after the first piece of toast, Cas takes over anyway. He stands between Dean's legs at the counter and feeds him. Although Dean is higher here, he has to bow his head to get the food, and it feels like bowing down in more ways than the literal. He can envision Cas' military-straight spine, how tall he stands when he's sure and calm and commanding, and Dean's slouched in front of him, head down in worship.

One of Cas' hands lands on the inside of Dean's thigh, thumb massaging firmly into the soft tissue. “Coffee's cool enough,” he says quietly. The hot rim of a ceramic mug touches Dean's lower lip, informing him of its presence. “You can drink.”

Dean dips a little and Cas raises a little, and it works out. Dean takes a deep swallow – hot but not scalding, bitter and smooth. The heat blooms down and it's like he can feel every niche of his insides warming, the shape of it all outlined in heat. “It's like,” he says, fishing for the mental image, “like those commercials with Pepto or whatever coating everything on the way down -”

“Hush,” says Cas, although Dean can hear the smile in his voice. “I'd prefer if you didn't speak, but you won't be punished if you do.”

Dean licks his lip. “Why not?” he dares.

There's a pause. “Well,” says Cas, “when you put it that way.”

A splash of intense heat hits the hollow of Dean's throat and washes down his chest. His breath catches, hiccups in shock, and a shiver quakes through him involuntarily, like putting his cold toes in hot bathwater. The coffee smell intensifies. The liquid is thankfully cooled enough not to hurt by the time it trickles into his pubic hair, but it's still warm.

Cas rubs his hand idly along the inside of Dean's thigh. Dean bites his lower lip and stolidly resists how badly he wants that hand to move a little to the left. “Hmph,” Cas says, and a little slurp says he's taking a drink. “Waste of coffee.”

Dean smirks. “Nah,” he whispers.

It earns him another scalding trickle, directly over a nipple this time, and his hair stands on end.

Dean eats the rest of his eggs and bacon in the small bites pressed to his lips, without complaint, no matter how badly he wants the scald to come back. After his last drink of coffee, he hears Cas walk away to the sink, and Dean takes the second in which he assumes he's not being watched to brush a thumb over his sensitized nipple and lightly tingling chest, letting out a hint of a sigh.

“What are you doing?” Cas says from the sink.

Dean drops his hand immediately.

“At this rate you won't get your present today,” Cas says idly. The water runs for a moment, rinsing dishes. Water shuts off. Another liquid pours. The coffee smell is still strong, the carafe still on the heating element. Dean hears Cas switch it off.

Cas approaches again. “Turn to the side and lie down.”

Dean envisions the countertop, full of mail tossed to the side, containers of flour and sugar and cornmeal and coffee, wide-mouthed jars holding all their big cooking spoons and spatulas, the wooden knife block down at one end.

He swallows and, since Cas isn't offering a guiding hand, reaches out to feel along the edge of the counter, to make sure he stays on it. He scoots back and turns a bit, wobbly as he tries to lie on his back, expecting at every second to feel something sharp or lumpy under him. Nothing's there but cold, cold stone. He didn't realize how much the spot right under his butt had warmed up from him sitting there, and the untouched surfaces are like ice. He trembles. The counter isn't long enough for him to lie all the way flat, but if he keeps his knees up, he can just rest his heels on the edge while he could swear his head is about to touch the wall, even though it surely can't be.

There's a clink and suddenly a point of excruciating heat is pressed directly into his sternum. Dean starts, but Cas murmurs, “still,” and he manages to keep from jerking. “That's the back of a spoon,” Cas says. “It'll cool. Where would you like the next one?”

Dean swallows. “Uh,” he rasps.

“Never mind,” Cas says. “We've got a couple dozen and they've been sitting in boiling water for a few minutes. More coffee?”

Dean whimpers a little.

Circles of hot metal touch his shoulders, his sides, the bottoms of his feet (he yelps at that one). Two finally, blessedly, touch his nipples, and he bites his lip hard against the surge of pleasure. A hot spoon finds its way along the undersides of his thighs, presses into his perineum while still hot but not scalding. Dean hardens helplessly throughout. He chews his cheek and sucks on his tongue to keep from making a sound, and he squirms a little on the cold countertop, but the sharp points of heat keep showing up in unexpected – and until now, not even erogenous – places.

Finally, finally, the spoons (now cold) get taken away and Dean hears water running. A moment later, Cas says, “Sit up,” and Dean tries to, wobbling and slipping. His palms are too sweaty against the smooth counter. Cas sighs and helps him; his hands are hot, now, and smell of lemon soap. He presses his hot hands into Dean's cold lower back and Dean hisses.

“Having fun yet?” Cas asks, a smile in his voice.

Dean bites his lip against a snappy response, and lets Cas shift him around and position him however he likes. Cas pulls Dean to the edge of the counter, precarious, and keeps easing him forward, into the press of Cas' arms and chest and body. Dean's instincts tell him to lean to a side and find the floor with one foot first, for balance, but he rounds up his instincts and ties them down and gags them. He lets Cas slide him forwards, off the counter, not seeking solid land or better balance. His feet touch the floor sooner than he expects; he'd begun to feel like he was just going to fall into nothing, with Cas wrapped around him.

Cas is still wrapped around him, but the kitchen returns in Dean's mind. He mentally places the counter behind him, not impossibly tall or extraordinarily cold. He knows the other countertop is only a little more than an arm's reach away, and that the sink is three steps to his right. He feels a little watery, a little buzzed, a pleasant tang like a cold beer on a hot day.

Cas eases off of the embrace a little, until only his hands are on Dean's hips. Dean realizes from the feel of him that he's fully clothed – something soft and knit, probably pajamas, but there's another little tingle from the fact that Cas is dressed and Dean is not.

Dean feels the breath on his mouth for a moment before lips touch his, so he's prepared to respond. He can't help kissing Cas hungrily, ready for more, now. He knows he needs to pace all day, but he's already losing the ability to care. He's half-hard still, and it's not going down this time.

Cas retreats before Dean's had his fill, passing his tongue one last time over Dean's lower lip. “Come on,” Cas says, taking one hand.

Dean lets himself be led again, but this time there aren't any giggle fits in the bathroom. Cas starts the shower and guides Dean inside it, but doesn't join him. Dean fumbles for the shower gel and gets a bit of a lather going, but not much. He doesn't bother with a loofah or anything, just wipes the coffee spills off his chest before it can get sticky. He stands under the hot water for a long minute without anything to do, wondering where Cas is, wondering if he's allowed to touch himself (almost certainly not), his blindfold soaking through with hot water.

The ghost of concern settles into his belly, where pleasure ought to have full reign. “Cas?” he calls. He stops wondering if he's supposed to wait for Cas to do it, and turns off the water. “Cas,” he calls again, without the water over his voice.

“Dean,” says a congenial voice way closer than he expected it to be, and Dean jumps, startled. Cas chuckles. “Sorry,” he says, sincere and calm. “Sorry, Dean, I'm here.”

“Okay,” Dean says, strained.

“I'm here,” breathed onto his mouth. Lips touch his in the dark, and the last of the concern seeps back out of Dean down his legs and through his toes, which curl against the tile with pleasure as Cas kisses him long and thorough and heated. A soft cloud of towel touches Dean's arms, wraps around his back. Cas dries him. There's a click, and “Close your eyes,” Cas says. Dean does, and the sodden blindfold is untied. The click must have been the overhead lights; even through only his lids, there's no hint of light, meaning it's dark in the bathroom. A dry strip of fabric finds Dean's face and is secured. Another click, but, for Dean, no light.

“Come,” Cas says, and Dean twitches in all the right places, wishing the command was in a slightly different context.

He follows Cas down the hall and realizes they're going back into the bedroom right before they cross the threshold. He swallows, throat dry, ready for anything.

“Now,” Cas says, “I have a present for you. Hold out your hands.”

Dean does, and something smooth touches them. He feels the shape – wide, square, pretty flat, maybe a couple inches tall. It's a box, and the smoothness is paper. He hesitates. “You can open it,” Cas says quietly. “It belongs to you.”

Dean finds the edges of the paper. Even though he's always been the sort to rip into gift wrapping, unlike Sam, who's a tape-picker by nature, this time Dean unwraps carefully. He wants to see what the paper looked like, what the box looked like – later, when he can. He wants to reconstruct this moment with vision. He doesn't have anywhere to put the paper or the box lid or the tissue inside, and Cas doesn't offer assistance, so he has to drop them, feeling the tickle of light, fluttery tissue paper against his toes.

Inside the box is a shape it takes him a minute to pinpoint. He knows the feel of leather, and the touch of metal here and there along the leather, but he has to walk his fingers all around the box to find that the center of the box is empty and the leather is shaped like a -

He stiffens a bit, spine straightening, fingers tingling. He licks his lips and lets go of the bottom half of the box, holding the thing in both hands, rubbing his thumbs over the softened leather. “I want to see it,” he says hoarsely.

“You will,” Cas says easily. “Later. For now, what do you want to do?”

Dean runs the collar through his palms, searching the bits of metal for a structural purpose. Cas is patient with him. He finds the clasp at last, and eases it apart by feel. He already feels more intimately connected to the thing in his hands than he would have if he could see it.

Dean bows his head and reaches out into black nothing, searching. Cas' hand finds his and Dean puts the opened collar into it. “Help me,” Dean says.

The catch of Cas' breath is gratifying. He fastens the collar around Dean's neck while Dean rests his hands over Cas', feeling the process vicariously. The bare hint of pressure on his neck is exquisite. The leather warms to his skin quickly, and the metal shifts in little points of cool as he breathes and swallows.

“You're beautiful,” Cas murmurs to him, smoothing his hands around Dean's neck. They settle into something almost like a chokehold, and Dean's whole body sparks up like an ember flicked into dry grass. He takes a shuddering breath. At this point he sincerely doubts he'll be able to hammer his libido back down with thoughts of mashed bananas or Grandma Winchester in a bikini.

“Now,” Cas says, taking one hand away and hooking a couple of fingers of the other into the collar. “You're still a little damp. I think you need to hang up to dry.” Dean tries not to pant his agreement while Cas leads him to the side.

When they'd moved in, they'd made a few discreet additions to their bedroom. A couple of feet out from the closet door, there's an eye hook screwed into a stud in the ceiling, painted white so it's almost invisible to the untrained eye. Three thick carabiners can fit into the eye hook, though they haven't yet used more than one. The ceilings in this house are high enough that a six-foot man with his arms above his head can be pulled those few precious inches further, until his heels leave the floor and his toes scrabble for purchase.

Dean licks his lips, knowing where Cas was while Dean was in the shower, because the tickle of hanging rope hits Dean before he reaches the closet door. The leather cuffs go on easily, this routine well-practiced; the cuffs are thick and well-padded on the inside, with heavy D-rings on the outside. Dean stays quiet through the process, spreading his legs on command when Cas kneels to attach his ankles to a spreader bar. The shorter one, Dean thinks. The wider one is great on the bed, but it's too wide to get any balance on the floor while hanging, and that makes Dean's shoulders take too much weight, and that would lead to real damage. Dean trusts absolutely that Cas will never hurt him.

He steadies himself on his toes, just barely able to grab some traction with the balls of his feet if he really strains. His shoulders already ache, but it's a good deep ache like exercise right now, a burn like stretching in the morning. He expects Cas to be done.

“One more,” says Cas, and suddenly his hands are at Dean's throat to clip a length of rope to the collar, and Cas is stretching it to join a second carabiner in the eye hook. Cas pulls the collar up gently, gently, until Dean's chin is tilted up by a bare inch or so, not uncomfortable – but he can't move, and if he were to pull downward or fall, he would choke.

Dean takes carefully measured breaths. His flesh runs hot and cold. His balls are starting to ache, and it's discouragingly early in the proceedings for that. Cas lets go of all the ropes and connections, admiring his work, and caresses Dean's stomach and chest gently. He gives Dean's length a few strokes, just as gentle as can be, and Dean whines.

“No,” Cas says, hand vanishing. “Now you'll be quiet. First-strike offense, and punishment is another five minutes up past the end of the timer. Cumulative. I'll be keeping track. I'm setting the timer for thirty minutes. Now, would you like some help with keeping quiet?”

Hands shaking like leaves, Dean nods the best he can with his neck tipped upwards. Cas says, “good boy,” and Dean almost groans a little but snaps his teeth shut to hold it in. After half an hour of whatever Cas has planned for him, Dean is positive that any more time hanging really will be torture of the highest degree.

Cas returns and touches Dean's mouth with fingers first, then something a little rubbery. Dean opens his mouth on instinct and Cas clasps the ball-gag in place. After a moment, he reaches up and fiddles with the rope lengths above Dean's head. His chin is let down, almost back to a normal position, and the stress across the front of Dean's throat eases. The ghost of it is still there – enough to fuel Dean's imagination. He knows why Cas is being so cautious. They've done hanging and blindfolding and neck restraints before, but not all at the same time.

Dean can't speak or tap, obviously, so Cas spends another minute fooling around above Dean's head, and then takes one of Dean's hands and stretches his fingers out. “Feel there,” Cas orders, and Dean fishes around. The flag is a piece of rough red burlap, part of what was once a big bag of basmati rice. The texture makes it easy for Dean to find even if he can't see it. He closes his hand over it a couple times to show Cas that he can reach it easily, yank it free of the ropes, and wave it like he's a pathetic, tightly-bound matador.

He does just that, with a faint hummed rendition of “Ride of the Valkyries” in the back of his throat to show that he's joking. Cas laughs. “Okay, okay,” he says. “I'm putting it back in, leave it alone now. And that's an extra five for making noise.”

Dean almost gives an offended scoff behind the gag, but figures he'd be ready to scream bloody murder at forty minutes and bites his tongue instead. Metaphorically. With the gag in place, he can't physically bite his tongue. In fact, all he can do is drool.

In the end, Dean spends forty-five minutes up. His second offense is only ten minutes in, when Cas has finished massaging his way down from the back of Dean's neck, all along his back, to the top of his ass. Dean hears Cas shift and feels the way the angle of his hands changes as he kneels, and he tries to brace when he feels breath between his cheeks, but the air in the bedroom feels cold after being so thoroughly splayed open to it, and Cas' tongue in comparison is _so hot._ He has decent access because of the spreader and he goes straight for a sloppy lick, scalding wet, strong tongue pushing right inside Dean, who clenches, unprepared, and gets a hard open-palmed slap on the inside of his thigh for resisting. The one-two punch of blinding pleasure and sharp pain happen so fast that Dean yells into his gag, then curses himself for falling for such a straightforward ploy.

Cas clears his throat. “Five,” he says, and Dean chokes on his automatic apology.

Cas returns his attention to Dean's ass and Dean tries, tries to remain loose and calm, tries not to pull, but he keeps finding himself straining to get his legs further apart, or hauling upward with corded arms to get better height, a better angle. He can't move himself for shit. If he pulls upward, he loses traction on the floor and sways away from Cas' face, and Cas just lets him go. Dean can _see_ the smirk on the asshole's face while he waits for Dean to struggle for grip and toe-walk back to where Cas can keep licking him wide open.

After Dean doesn't know how long – it feels eternal – something inside him starts rising like a huge bubble. Like the whale under a boat, the shore under a raft, it grows in him almost like the heat of an orgasm does, but this is different. His involuntary functions resist it but his voluntary self cries out for its embrace. He tries to take a breath, like oxygenated fluid, like changing from lungs to gills. He tries to suck it in, let it permeate him, and after a minute something breaks – breaks like the chemicals inside a light stick, and floods him down to the end of every limb.

He isn't completely gone yet, but Cas slaps the inside of his thigh again, first one then the other, and the pain feels altogether different. Not sharp and external and quickly quelled. He feels the pain in slow motion, the firing of nerve endings spreading like ink in water, and the difference between the signals for pain and pleasure get lost somewhere on the way to his brain. He just _feels._

Something about the way his muscles don't twitch or clench in response to the slaps makes Cas retreat from eating Dean out. He hums against the top of Dean's thigh, kisses the skin and then bites, hard and deep and deliberate. It ripples through Dean, not really pain, just sensation. His shoulders, which had begun to feel excruciating, no longer hurt. He flicks the red burlap with one finger just to make sure his hands are still attached to his body, still function. He stops gripping the floor with his toes, curls them up and hangs freely for a moment. There's a huge strain, a tightness, through his entire upper body, but it doesn't hurt.

Cas tuts at him and Dean hears him stand. His hands rest on Dean's hips, holding him in place, taking away some of the strain. “That's it,” Cas murmurs. One hand leaves and then returns in a spank so hard that the skin of Dean's back ripples with it, but to Dean it feels like the roiling sensual prickle of feeling returning to a sleeping limb. Cas spanks him again, again, surely leaving handprints, until Dean loses count, and the heat builds in Dean's hips from the points of impact. The air is so cold but he's a furnace now, shivering and radiating.

Cas walks around to Dean's front and leans close, holding Dean around the waist. “That's it.” He kisses the column of Dean's throat, stretched up taut, endless expanse of skin. He nips and bites, and the pain bleeds out like slow ripples from a dropped stone, transmutes to pleasure. Dean writhes slowly, clumsily, like he's lost control of his limbs.

Cas leans down and engulfs the head of Dean's dick for a moment, lapping over the leaking tip like a cat. He rises again immediately, and reaches around the side of Dean's face to unclasp the drool-slick gag.

The overpowering taste of his own precome rips a moan out of Dean's throat. Even though his jaw aches and his face feels slack from holding the gag in place for so long, he devours Cas' mouth like he's starving, licking over Cas' tongue and chasing, chasing, chasing for touch. For a moment Cas holds the sides of his head and Dean has plenty of leverage and he can press forward and take and be taken. But then Cas lets go and Dean can't lean forward, can't push against anything or pull into anything. The only thing holding his head up is the pure muscle and will power in his neck, and his neck is so exhausted he feels like he could die.

Cas breaks away gasping. “Five,” he rasps.

Dean can't even contemplate groaning an objection. If he stays up here any longer he'll explode.

Cas is kind to him for the last few minutes, or some version of kind. He holds Dean by the hips and sways him gently, humming faintly, and it's like dancing. It's as zen as a waltz and as tiring as running a marathon. Dean lets every thread of tension unravel, every muscle go slack. He melts. As much as he had been in bed this morning, he simply melts.

Cas brings a hand to his cock and strokes it gently, just walking the pads of his fingers over the length really, thumb feeling along the head in a soft, repetitive side-swipe. It's just enough touch to toss a tiny spark into dry brush, and Dean fights it in mind and soul but not in body. He can't move away, he can't stop it. The thought of coming is all-consuming, but it isn't _right,_ it isn't what he wants now, but it's the _only_ thing he wants, but Cas hasn't told him to – Cas hasn't said he can – but _fuck,_ the spark is there, sizzling, he feels it tight and heavy in his thighs, in the base of his spine, clenching –

He works his jaw, trying to remember speech, and mumbles, “B'nan, nana, nnmm.”

Cas stops, moves his hand lower and squeezes the base of Dean's dick. Like a train miraculously hauling the brakes to a stop hanging half-off a cliff, Dean scrunches his face and commands himself not to come with all his will.

It burns over the surface of his skin. It's still _burning,_ like sunburn, like a horrible itch and if he could just scratch it he'd – it would be the _best_ relief, the _only_ relief – if he could, if he could just -

Cas murmurs praise in his ear, an ongoing stream of half-formed thoughts. Dean drifts back from the edge, clinging to the sound of Cas' voice. “You made it,” Cas murmurs, reaching above Dean's head. “Hey. You made it. You're coming down.”

“N,” Dean tries.

“Shh,” says Cas, and the ropes loosen.

It's screaming pain for a moment, and Dean gasps. Blood rushes like lava into all the places it's been fighting gravity to get to. His arms burn like they've been in scalding water. “I know,” Cas whispers as Dean bites down a sob. “I'm sorry,” Cas says, giving Dean small bits of slack and letting him adjust before dropping his arms down a little more. When Dean's feet are resting firmly on the floor, Cas kneels and undoes the straps holding the spreader bar in place. Dean picks each foot up, shaking and wobbling, and gives his ankles a tiny twist to make sure they're still working.

Dean's new collar drops free of its rope, leaving his chin free and his head light as helium. He sways. Cas lets the last rope slip out of the carabiners, which jingle in their hook, but Cas doesn't let Dean's arms fall. He holds them up, a little bent at the elbow, and lowers them in a gradual, easy arc. Dean's shoulders don't scream bloody murder any more. They ache, they ache deep, a throb like an old bruise, but every pulse of pain sends signals cascading down from his shoulders like standing in a rain of sparks. Like a boiling spray of water, or tiny shards of ice. Dean's spine quakes, a shiver down in his bones that seems unending, as part of him as his breath, a low rolling growl of thunder.

Cas massages his arms calmly, steadily. Hands work over his shoulders, deltoids like mush, into the strained sides of his neck, around the back to the tight trapezius. Bloodflow normalizes, leaves Dean feeling flush and wrung out, maybe even a little feverish.

“Good,” Cas whispers into the side of Dean's jaw, pressing a kiss here and there. “Good. I love you. Come with me.”

Dean stumbles as he follows. Cas turns him around, tells him to sit. Blind, Dean has no idea what's behind him. He sits anyway, without hesitation. The bed is there to catch him.

“Lie down,” Cas says, and Dean does, legs still hanging off the edge at the knee. Cas laughs faintly. “You can turn, you'll be fine. All the way on.”

Dean wriggles and flops a bit, but he finds enough mattress to lie down flat. He doesn't know if he's oriented the right way on the bed, but he figures it doesn't matter. He can't feel any sheets or blankets bunched under him, so Cas must have pulled all those off.

Cas lifts his head and puts a pillow under it, then climbs onto the mattress with Dean. He swings a leg over Dean's waist and settles over him, knees hugging the soft flesh of his sides. “Stay...” Cas mumbles, almost dreamily, almost an afterthought. He goes back to massaging Dean's sore arms, rubbing the bloodflow into them until they feel all but raw from the attention. Dean chews his bottom lip and could just about ask Cas to stop. In any other moment, he'd ask Cas to stop.

Now, he lets it happen. And it feels like his skin is sloughing, leaving something that isn't him, it's too clean to be him. He feels worked down to the bone. He feels transcendant.

Cas is rocking on him now, a sensation too gentle to be arousing, even though Cas is definitely grinding for his own relief. If anything, Dean's arousal is subsiding a little. He's being lulled, not quite into sleep, but into something like a trance. His attention is too occupied by Cas' hands and by the bellows of his lungs pulling clean, cold air through his overheated flesh, to pay any mind to what his dick's doing.

Eventually Cas slows. He stops kneading Dean's neck, smooths his hands down to Dean's chest. With a sigh, Cas slides off to Dean's side and tugs at his hip. “Turn over,” Cas says. “Get comfortable.”

Dean does. He's almost on his stomach, but with a little bit of give to the side Cas is on. He's still wearing the padded leather cuffs, which are comfortable but bulky, and they poke into his hip. Cas crowds into him, arms around him, hips touching, legs tangled.

“Sleep,” Cas orders. Dean doesn't need to be told twice.

\---

Castiel doesn't go to sleep. He has a raging erection and there's no way he'll make it through the afternoon he has in mind if he comes now.

He lies with Dean for a long time, counting the same freckles he's counted a million times before, feeling the ribs rise and fall under his encircling arm. He's read endless accounts and descriptions of subspace, of sexual masochism, and he thinks he has a good grasp of how Dean feels and what he wants. But in these moments, he still feels like he can't get close enough to Dean. Like if he could just get a little closer, he could see inside Dean's mind, truly and viscerally feel what Dean feels. But he doesn't, not quite. He tried hanging from the cuffs once. He made it fifteen minutes before he had to quit, and he never experienced the euphoric detachment Dean decribed, or the short-circuit that conflated adrenaline, endorphins, and sexual gratification. Just pain.

But it's not like he doesn't get anything out of dominating Dean. Far from it. Far... _far_ from it.

It's technical perfection, he supposes. Manipulating Dean _at the molecular level._ A little physical restraint and stimulation combine to catalyze a natural chemical restraint more effective than any collar or cuff. Dean's so suggestive like this, he's _high,_ he's spaced right the fuck out. And Cas lies there next to him, understanding how badly Dean _could_ get hurt, how easy it would be to hurt Dean when he's like this. And he lies there feeling fiercely, desperately, transcendantly protective.

Does it turn him on? Sure. Absolutely. He can't stop _touching_ Dean when he's strung out like this... directing him, playing with him, stringing him along, using him. Once upon a time it might have scared him, the intensity of this possessiveness – he might have thought it was unhealthy. But he's accepted by now that it's no less unhealthy than the fact that Dean can reach orgasm from being whipped. (Okay, that only happened once, and there was also a vibrator involved.) The important thing is that he _doesn't_ think Dean is an object. He doesn't, really, and he could never even comprehend thinking that. And Dean, in his core, knows full well that Cas is not a torturer or an enemy. So the indulgence in playing out these fantasies is just that – indulgence. It's decadent and stupid and glorious – psychologically complicated but in execution, disarmingly simple – and it's, quite frankly, _blindingly_ hot.

In this moment, at Dean's side, he can be a shield, as effectively and completely as it's never possible to be out in the real world. He wants his daughter not to feel the pain of growing up? He wants his family never to experience hardship? Those things aren't going to happen. He wants his students to be healthy and happy? He has no control over that. He sees black eyes under makeup and he sees redness and swelling beneath long sleeves in the summer, sometimes, and he sees kids fail for no reason he can see at all, but he knows there is a reason, and he'll never have the chance to help or to fix these things. He can't save everyone, though he tries.

In _this_ moment, though, he is Dean's earth and sky. Dean takes his heart out, dusts it off, and sets it in Cas' hands, and Cas knows with such intense intimacy exactly what the rest of the world would do with this heart, and he is exactly _what_ Dean needs and he is _all_ that Dean needs. A shield. A guardian. A knight. He has complete and total control over his environment, his emotions, his actions. Nothing will be a surprise. Nothing will make his anxiety uncoil in the pit of his stomach.

Dean loves him, Dean loves him, Dean loves him. In this moment, Cas believes it. Wholeheartedly, he believes it.

He feels needed, he feels necessary, he feels powerful, and he feels loved. It's all he's ever craved, and in this moment he's complete.

After a while of lying at Dean's side and breathing his breaths, Cas wakes a little and decides he needs to get some more done before Dean wakes. He edges away from Dean, rolls off the bed, stands and stretches. He gathers up the sheets and blankets from the floor at the foot of the bed, where he'd hastily yanked them off while Dean was in the shower. He can't really leave Dean's side to do all this prep work, not with Dean blindfolded – a continuous connection is necessary, via touch or voice. If he's done his work right, Dean won't have had any passing thought about his past experiences with being blinded in a scene, but for Cas it's always at the front of his mind. He remembers Dean telling him about being tied and hooded and left alone for who knows how long, and then touched and used by hands that belonged to who knows what or how many people, people he'd never met and never consented to being touched by. Cas will never let Dean lose track of him.

He settles a soft throw over Dean's prone form, airy fleece over reddened, abused skin. The rest of the stuff he folds and sets aside. He takes the carabiners off the ceiling, unknots and re-coils his ropes, hangs them on their correct hooks in the closet. Dean is still wearing the leather cuffs. Cas considers this. They'll need to come off, but they're fine for now. He doesn't think he can get them off without waking Dean up.

He strips down to nothing in the bedroom, bundling clothes into the laundry hamper, and with a glance at Dean he times himself to take a sub-three-minute shower. It's just past noon. He glances in on Dean while he dries his hair, but Dean's so conked out, nothing short of a nuclear bomb should wake him. Cas deems that he has time, so he heads to the kitchen and takes the plate and bowl of foods he'd prepped yesterday out of the fridge, then makes a cup of tea.

Back in the bedroom, Cas sets out the food on the bedside table, finds the book he was reading, and sets his silent alarm to flash at him in an hour. He settles against the headboard with a pillow behind him and another warm throw over his knees, and he sips his tea and reads.

He's so absorbed in the book he almost misses the twitching of Dean's shoulders under the fleecey throw. He catches the movement out of the corner of his eye, and checks his phone clock – the silent alarm is due to start flashing any minute. He turns it off, puts his book aside, and moves down to Dean's side.

Dean rolls again a bit under the blanket, pulls closer around his shoulders, and lets out a pleased hum.

“Good afternoon,” Cas says, letting his teasing and his smile ring clear in his voice.

“Mmm,” says Dean, showing his face just enough to cast a broad smile into the empty void that's all he can see.

Cas reaches out and touches his temples, rubbing little circles, touching his eyes under the cloth. At this point he has no intention of taking the blindfold off until it's well after dark, because any sudden adjustment back to light would cause Dean a good deal of pain.

Dean leans into any touch, and snuggles his face closer into the pillow, under the fleece. “Hi,” he says.

“A break,” Cas says, “for lunch. Sit up, please?”

Dean complies, bringing the blanket with him around his shoulders. He wriggles into a comfortable position and Cas leans forward and kisses his already-swollen lips. Dean sighs into the kiss, reaching out with his cuffed hands to touch Cas' chest. He must still be sleepy and addled, because he usually imposes more self-restraint than Cas ever orders him to. Cas might say “no touching” and mean it for one activity, for no more than a few minutes, but for Dean it means “hands inside the car at all times and do not exit until commanded to.” Cas has to remember to lift his bans sometimes, because Dean's willpower is so strong he'll continue obeying an order long past when Cas cares about it or would remember to punish Dean for failing to obey.

Cas puts his hands over Dean's, and Dean starts. He tries to pull his hands back, but Cas holds on. “No, it's okay,” Cas says, looking at Dean's lips and throat. “At ease. Touch and talk. Whatever you like.” Of course he's limited by the cuffs. Cas decides to leave them on for now.

Dean grins at him. “What's for lunch?”

Cas hums his consideration and leans back to get the plate and bowl off the table and set them on the mattress between his and Dean's knees. “Nothing fancy.” He picks up a few things off the plate and stacks them up. “Open your mouth.”

Dean does, and sticks out his tongue. Cas snorts at him and shoves the cracker sandwich in his mouth. Dean coughs on a laugh and the sudden mouthful, ducking his head to his cuffed hands in case he loses something. He chews and snickers while Cas makes his own cracker sandwich, and when he's managed to swallow some, Dean says, “Shit, you made homemade Lunchables.”

Cas tuts at him and puts another stack of ham, cheese and cracker into Dean's awkwardly positioned hands. Dean eats more reasonable bites as Cas hands him things.

“I did not,” Cas says. “I've never had a Lunchable.”

“Oh come on,” Dean says around a mouthful, “you've got a kid.”

“She's had them, sure.”

“And you never ate one?”

“They're expensive!”

Dean laughs.

“Besides,” says Cas, biting into a pickle, “this is literally the same thing, but with extras, and not prepackaged. Therefore this is better.”

“Extras?” Dean sticks out his tongue again.

Cas crams an entire pickle in his mouth.

“Agh,” Dean splutters. He bites off a chunk in startlement and catches the rest between his hands. “Na ah'm all sticky,” he says around the chunk.

“You knew you were going to be all sticky today,” Cas says reasonably.

Dean crunches. “Pickle juice 'n jizz way diff'rent,” he mutters.

“One tastes a lot better,” Cas says.

Dean snorts.

They eat in comfortable silence for a minute. Dean reaches his hands down to prod around at where he guesses the plate to be, and finds the bowl instead. “Ooh,” he says. “Holding out on me.”

“Dessert,” Cas says primly.

“Better be pie.”

“Who's in charge here?”

“Remind me why I married you again?” Dean cautiously sticks a finger in the bowl. “You and _sticky_ things.”

Cas, of course, has a fork, and the vision to use it. He spears up a bit of fruit. “Open,” he says. Dean receives the bite willingly.

“Okay,” Dean says after swallowing. “I forgive you. It isn't really peach season, where'd you get one that good?”

“More than one,” Cas says. “There's enough left to make a pie tomorrow.”

Dean licks his lips, a lush, slow lick that Cas can't possibly ignore. “Oh yeah,” Dean purrs. “That's why I married you.” He leans forward.

Cas would love to throw him down and kiss him stupid, but he grabs the precarious bowl instead. “Stop tilting!” He might squeak a little. Just a little.

Dean laughs and leans back.

There are strawberries in the bowl, too, and Cas is mostly eating them himself until Dean snags one bare-fingered by accident. “Mm,” he says around his mouthful, “the sexy fruit.”

“Shut up,” Cas mutters. “The correlation in popular fiction between erotica and strawberries is arbitrary and absurd. Even back to pre-Biblical history, you know in the pagan mythologies from whence the Eden story was drawn, the fruit that gave what was generally accepted to be a sexual awakening to the pubescent fertility figures later called Adam and Eve is believed to have been a pomegranate – stop laughing at me!”

Dean sniffs back his teary-eyed giggle fit. “Sexy fruit,” he chokes out.

“I don't like pomegranate!”

“Make it your safeword,” Dean giggles.

“I'll make it yours!”

“Oh man,” Dean says. “Imagine.” He affects a strained, breathy voice. “Oh baby, no, I can't take it any more – p-p-pomegraaaaannnn -”

“I will gag you again,” Cas says.

“I'm full,” Dean says, almost petulant now. “It's boring not being able to see you.”

Cas tuts and takes away the plate and bowl, rolling carefully to the side of the bed to put them back on the table. “Full,” he says, licking his fork clean and setting it aside. “Huh.” He climbs back on the bed, walking on his knees towards Dean. “That's too bad,” he says. “There's another course.”

Dean chews his lip. “That was a _terrible_ segue,” he murmurs, but he also licks his lips again, and his crossed legs, bent posture, and blanket shawl don't quite do enough to hide the way he shifts. He hasn't had any relief today.

“It's really,” Cas says, “time for you to be quiet again,” and he pushes Dean's head sharply down towards his knees.

Dean sucks in a breath but doesn't reply.

“Good,” Cas says. “Give me your hands.”

Dean holds them up as if in prayer. Cas unbuckles one of the two leather cuffs and checks Dean's wrist – pink from the pressure, sweaty, but no damage. He shoves Dean down a bit more, until it must be uncomfortable, and then grabs both of Dean's arms and hauls them up behind his back. He refastens the cuff over the free wrist. “Sit up,” he orders.

Dean straightens, arms pulled behind his back, chest taut. Cas rubs his chest, tracing a few spots sticky with droplets of peach or pickle juice, then licks them to see which are which. He spends a couple of minutes cleaning Dean up, then licks his lips.

“So,” he says, “turns out combining peach and pickle flavors does not net 'pickled peach.'”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Needs cinnamon and clove,” he murmurs.

“You only like them because they taste like pie,” Cas says. “Turn to your left and move a few feet up the bed.”

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but Cas can only do so much with sheer hauling – Dean's a heavy man, heavier than Cas by at least a dozen pounds of muscle. Dean wriggles up to his knees and shuffles over so that Cas only has to twist his shoulders as needed. Finally, Dean collapses in place, and Cas wedges a pillow behind him to give him some support, and somewhere his trapped hands will be cushioned.

“There,” Cas says. “Stay.” He gets up. “I'm taking the dishes to the kitchen. You have twelve minutes to do whatever you like, but you need to be in that exact position when I return.”

Dean chews his bottom lip and nods.

Cas gathers the dishes and clinks on his way out; he makes sure Dean can hear his steps. He does go to the kitchen as promised, but he doesn't stay to put away leftovers or wash the dishes – instead he pads back to the bedroom with extraordinary care, avoiding every little creak in the floorboards, rolling his bare feet slowly over the wood so as not to make a single slap.

He makes it back to the bedroom after only three minutes. He has nine to stand and watch.

Dean hasn't moved. Interesting – Cas thought he might take a quick dive onto his front, grind into the mattress. He's half-hard already. The shifted restraints and the resumption of Cas' command role did that much. But he hasn't made any effort to touch his dick that Cas can tell.

He lets out a slow, measured breath while Cas watches, and leans back. Then back more, like he's trying to fold himself backwards. His mouth twists into a grimace of effort and he suddenly wriggles against the pillow crammed behind him, pushing the crown of his head against the headboard, and his stomach muscles spasm a little and he makes a sharp, light sound, and in that moment Cas figures out what he's doing.

Cas touches himself, finally, while Dean struggles for the purchase to reach his own asshole. He licks his palm and strokes slowly, leaning in the doorframe, watching through half-lidded eyes. Dean reaches his goal and remains in his contortion, breathing quickening as he works his cheeks apart and starts to rub at the only erogenous zone he can reach with his hands stuck behind his back. Cas can't see his efforts – he wonders if Dean's fingering himself dry.

Not that he's quite dry. Cas left behind plenty of saliva. The rim will have dried, but if Dean gets a finger inside he'll have something wet to work with...

Cas' strokes speed up a bit as he swells to attention. He's spent a lot of today aroused, a lot more time than he'd normally be fired up in the course of one day, though he hasn't been right up to the screaming edge of orgasm like Dean has. But he's been horny long enough to start feeling frustrated at the lack of relief.

And, oh, Dean is definitely fingering himself, flexing in a slow rhythm against his hand where it's trapped between his ass and the mattress. Cas has another three minutes to wait, but Dean's sinking fast into total commitment and Cas wants to interrupt that process sooner rather than later. Cas all but holds his breath and glides into the room, ghosting around an oblivious, faintly humming Dean who thinks he has entire minutes left to himself.

Cas tiptoes to the side of the bed and leans over, just a little. “Dean,” he says, almost in Dean's ear.

Dean leaps wildly, collapsing out of his precarious backwards yoga position, sucking in a harsh gasp. “Fuck,” he snaps, voice too high.

Cas grabs his leg to steady him, then immediately squeezes the base of Dean's penis. Dean bows backwards again and groans.

“What position do you call that?” Cas asks sharply.

Dean flounders for a second, then manages to pull himself up and get his back to the pillow again. Cas swings his leg over Dean's thighs and scrubs a hand over the top of Dean's head, getting a good grip on his short hair. Cas settles onto Dean's thighs and leans his face into Dean's. “I asked you,” Cas growls, “what you were doing.”

Dean squirms. “T-touching...”

“Fingering yourself.”

Dean nods.

“How deep could you get, bent over like that?” Cas jerks Dean's hair a little. “Not far, I bet.”

Dean moans.

“Just a brush on the rim,” Cas taunts. “Like a feather. Barely there.”

Dean shakes his head abruptly.

“No? Harder than that?” Cas digs his other hand into Dean's hair. “One knuckle, maybe. Nowhere near enough. You want to be filled up, Dean?”

Dean gushes, “Yes, yes, yes -”

“No. We've barely gotten started.”

Dean grunts disappointment, complaint.

“Shut,” Cas hisses, “your mouth” - he yanks - “and do something” - he shoves Dean's head forward and down - “useful.”

He surges up on his knees, taking one hand from Dean's hair to grab hold of the headboard, and with very little aligning he shoves his cock into Dean's mouth.

Dean moans loudly, pleasure combined with alarm and sudden positional adjustment. And there is some adjusting – Dean has to slide down a little lower, Cas has to angle his hips, but then Dean's in just the right place and – oh -

Cas likes sucking Dean off. He likes it; he doesn't love it. He likes Dean's reactions, the happy babble of praise that Dean can't ever seem to keep bottled up. (Dean's the one who gets off on being gagged, choked, silenced – Cas has long since gotten used to accommodating that kink, but when they're being vanilla, which is a lot of the time to be honest, he prefers it when Dean talks.) Cas doesn't mind the taste of dick, of bitter precome and sweat and slightly coppery skin where the blood's too close to the surface. He's inclined to swig mouthwash after a blowjob, but he doesn't mind it while he's doing it.

Dean _fucking loves giving head._ It honestly took Cas months if not years to be fully convinced that Dean wasn't exaggerating how much it turns him on. Dean can get so invested in giving a blowjob that by the time he finishes up with Cas, he's so ready to blow that all it takes is a dark look. He'll jerk himself off while blowing Cas more often than not – he doesn't like sixty-nining because it's too much of a distraction, he says. It's like zen, he says. It's like one of those steam-lodge trances.

Cas is of the opinion that the psychological component of Dean's sex drive could probably provide fodder for a whole psychology departments' doctoral theses.

Giving head and being face-fucked are not, of course, quite the same thing. Dean doesn't have a chance to get fancy with technique, or the leeway to bob or twist his head. But he can still do a hell of a lot with Cas' impetus, thrust, and rhythm. Cas touches his thumb to the corner of Dean's mouth, slipping along the side of his shaft as he dips in and out, his breath shuddering with pleasure every time Dean swirls and flicks his tongue. He's not overly cautious or gentle, so Dean makes wet gagging noises now and then, and his coughs and swallows sound thick and rattly from the overproduction of saliva, but Cas doesn't worry. Dean has no qualms about telling Cas exactly how rough he can – and should – be.

Cas shifts and re-tightens his grip in Dean's hair, holds Dean's head still against the headboard, and pushes in steadily. Dean opens his throat for him like a fucking pro. The lava-heat and the tightness and – Cas imagines Dean without the blindfold right now, dragging open his eyes, his lashes gluey with tears, and looking right up through those blurry lashes at Cas' face looking down through the crook of his elbow -

Cas pulls out with a gasp, the flood of scalding pleasure spreading down his thighs and taking root in his balls. Dean gags and hacks out a messy cough, tipping his head up for more airflow, but he almost immediately licks his lips and strains against Cas' hand to find where his dick went.

Cas lets go of his hair, slides down his semi-reclined body, and seals his mouth over Dean's reddened, spit-messed one. Dean's kiss, all openness and submission and begging, tells Cas that he's successfully hotwired that short-circuit in Dean's brain again. Dean's slack in just the right ways, tense in just the right places.

After a good long makeout, Cas gives Dean some air. He sucks in his breaths greedily but at the same time he writhes under Cas, head searching for something, anything, wanting to take whatever Cas wants to give.

“How's it going down there?” Cas says, rolling his hips over Dean's waist, getting a hint of friction against Dean's stomach.

Dean groans and rolls his head back against the headboard.

“Wrists, arms?”

Dean does something twitchy with his shoulder that Cas assumes is a shrug.

“Mm.” With regret, Cas stops rocking. He eases off to one side of Dean (who protests with a flailed leg), off the bed, and stands up. Licking his lips, he walks around the bed, looking Dean over. He has an idea, he knows what he wants to do, but he has to figure out arrangement.

He leans Dean forward again (hair grab, pull) and unclips the cuffs from each other rather than freeing Dean's hands. Dean's arms fall loose, but Cas immediately drags them up to the headboard and clips them into the hidden ties there.

The thing is, they bought this bed frame when they bought the house. And before they put a mattress on it, they put a few personal hardware details in place. So... no, strictly speaking, it's not a bondage bed. But it is a regular queen-sized bed on which it is especially easy to perform simple bondage tricks. Like spread-eagling Dean between the head- and footboards and then roping him down.

It takes Cas a few minutes. The cuff clips are easy to reach; for the rest, he goes to the end of the bed, grabs Dean's ankles and hauls Dean bodily down the length of the bed. Dean can't get the purchase to help out, and is too busy bucking his raging erection against thin air anyway. They have a second pair of cuffs, and since this is pretty much their only purpose, they leave them clipped to the ties in the footboard and store them by simply shoving them under the foot of the mattress. Cas drags these out and clasps them around Dean's ankles, then adjusts the lengths of the ties and checks his knots.

He fetches the red burlap flag and puts it near Dean's right hand, although Dean can easily knock on the headboard for tap-outs, and he isn't gagged anyway. He makes sure Dean knows where the flag is. Cas is goddamn serious about his safety redundancies.

Then he goes into the closet and picks up his longest rope.

There are some cup hooks screwed into the bedframe, under the box springs, hidden by a mattress skirt. Cas tucks up the skirt, makes his initial tie-offs, and starts crossing. It takes a fuckton of rope to cross a queen bed (surface and both vertical sides, to reach the hooks). The length that would have gone over a real bondage bed twice or three times can only do about half the height of Dean's body. Happily, that's what Cas wants.

He zones out, doing the crossing and the ties. Dean writhes and wriggles under the ropes and Cas slaps his thighs and his hips and the soles of his feet. (Not his stomach, when he's bound flat on his back. No impacts there or on his chest. That's called CPR, and it can be problematic for someone who isn't in critical danger of heart failure.)

The ropes start crossing over Dean right along the line of his collarbone, at the tops of his shoulders, and they cross every couple of inches all the way down to his bellybutton. He can sort of flex up and gyrate his hips, assisted by the bounce of the mattress, but he can't lift his feet or move any part of his upper body.

“That,” Cas says, admiring his work, “will do. All right. I'm sick of this. I want to come. You want to come?”

Dean flat-out sobs. “Jesus, Cas, _please."_

“I mean, it's been a while,” Cas says, because he's an asshole. “I could use a little tension relief. Happily I've got this amazing dildo my husband gave me for Christmas.”

“Fuck _off -”_

“It's shaped like a griffin's dong, modeled one presumes off someone's pet _griffin.”_ Cas pops the cap of the lube on the bedside table.

“You can't you can't you -”

“I believe you'll find I can, and I am.” Cas is, in fact, not. One lubed finger is dipping into his ass, but he doesn't intend to go digging out any toys when he has a live fucking machine strapped to his bed. Besides, the griffin dildo is such a weird shape he can only look at it like a piece of modern abstract art in sheer bogglement. Actually, maybe he'll give it a test run on Dean later. It's still in the box in the closet right now.

_“Cas,”_ Dean moans in true despair, moving his hips in their maximum, pathetic range – a tiny jiggle.

Cas can't do this forever. He can sense when he's broken Dean down beyond all hope, and he's almost at the point of no return. He bites his lip and keeps pressing lube up and inside. He's raring to go – has been for hours, honestly – but to put it delicately, his sphincter takes a lot more wining and dining than Dean's does to get ready to play host to several inches of significant girth.

He leans over the side of the bed, up to three fingers quickly and panting about it. He holds the base of his dick, staving off going overboard, and searches out his own prostate and – and -

Hell, that's it, he needs Dean right fucking now.

He climbs on the bed, swinging over Dean again, and snaps out a little more lube. He jacks it over Dean's dick and Dean makes a sound like a tea kettle, jackknifing under the rope. Cas smears lube over his asshole, wipes excess on the inside of his thigh. He holds Dean's tip to him and lets gravity do most of his job for him.

Fuckfuck _fuck_ Dean's big. Familiarity hasn't ever reduced the initial shock. Cas' whole body shudders and crawls with the gooseflesh of pleasure-pain as he takes more and more in. Dean's quite simply crying into his blindfold. Cas settles, his ass flush to Dean's hips, and he basks in the fullness for a moment, eyes closed, before he starts moving.

Cas rides slow. He loves to be fucked hard, but he finds that _riding_ hard leaves his legs too sore to really concentrate on the fireworks of pleasure. Besides, he likes Dean to be in his full and right mind when he tops... just because Dean's the one who gets tied up and tortured doesn't mean they don't do a little role-reversal now and then. Cas may not prefer bondage, but he likes being thoroughly possessed.

Not right now, though. Right now Dean is his toy... his breathing, writhing, sobbing toy. Dean does all he can between the ropes and the mattress – a motion that's half flex, half bounce – and it creates quick, shallow jabs into Cas, who shivers and bites his lip. He moves a little, angles his hips, and grinds down in brief rolls until – oh yeah _oh yeah,_ the shallow bounces graze right over his prostate, and Cas grabs his dick with a moan, stroking and squeezing.

He lifts and sinks in a steady, shallow rhythm, just accentuating Dean's bouncing thrusts, but he jacks off like a wild thing. He clenches around Dean for the extra pressure, adjusted to the girth and improbably wanting more, _more,_ fuller and deeper, and he pants and moans and jerks but he doesn't quite close his eyes again – he just watches Dean, how red his face is, the sweat that trickles and soaks into the blindfold, the way his hands fist white-knuckled against nothing, the red streaks across his chest under the ropes holding him down and the blood drawn up to the oversensitive skin, the way his hard nipples peek out between crosses of rope – Cas reaches up and pinches one of the nubs lightly, rolls it between his fingers, and Dean's cries are so desperate now, so rich and guttural and wordless.

Heat lightning flickers throughout Cas' skin. His thighs and groin alight with it, the untethered, nebulous electricity of pleasure. His balls draw up, tighter, tighter, and he clenches and rides harder, finally too far gone to notice that his leg muscles protest. He doesn't ask if Dean is close or try to hold off. The deal about Dean in bondage is that Cas gets to have what he wants, when he wants it, and Dean doesn't.

The earthquake starts in his stretched-full ass and deep in his belly; his pants get shallower and he rocks in sharp jerks, hand a blur over his dick. The orgasm cracks him like a fault line. The heat of it hits him in the thighs and chest and rumbles out to his extremities, toes curling and hands fisting. Come splashes up Dean's belly, flecking onto the rope, but some flicks back onto Cas as well, from the jacking motion. Cas rolls his hips, head back, and keeps working out every little shiver, every spark. The feeling melts into him, a warmth down into the end of every limb like stepping into a hot shower after a run.

“Fu-uhck,” Dean groans, his attempts at thrusting unchanged. Cas isn't moving now, though, just sitting on Dean's dick unhelpfully while Dean struggles to get any upward motion. “Baby,” Dean pants, “baby, please, _please_ – Cas _god_ I can't, I can't...”

Afterglow makes Cas charitable. He takes a nice deep cleansing breath through his nose and lets it out through his mouth. “You feel so good,” he says, leaning forward onto Dean's chest on his hands. “You're so good to me. You can come – come for me, Dean.”

Dean nods frantically. Cas gathers his wits and his tired muscles and clenches his ass again, focusing only on what's good for Dean this time. He squeezes on the rise, sinks back quickly. He can't keep up a coordinated rhythm of that for very long, though, because to be honest his thighs are ready for a break, maybe a nap. Possibly some Bengay or Tylenol.

Cas sits up and twists, hunting around behind him for the footboard of the bed. He nearly has to get up and turn around, but he finally finds what he wants – the clasp between the ankle cuffs. He releases it, and Dean suddenly has freedom to move his feet.

The shuffling and change is instantaneous. Dean pulls his feet up, gets good leverage, and slams up into Cas. Cas yelps but rolls with it – the sudden impact to his prostate sends out happy aftershocks – and lifts up a bit, levered on Dean's chest, so that Dean has plenty of space to thrust. Dean's a loud, panting, mewling mess, straining on his bound wrists even harder than before, fighting to be able to touch Cas.

Cas plays with Dean's tormented nipples for something to do, and within half a minute Dean takes a deep, choppy breath and his hips stutter. Cas clenches. Dean exhales on a sob and his length twitches deep inside, splashing release hot enough that Cas can feel it, and Cas lets out a shaky sigh, almost sad that it's over. Dean gulps air while Cas stays on top of him, threading his fingers between the ropes to stroke Dean's bound sides. Dean's thighs are trembling where Cas is sitting against them; Cas' thighs are shivering, too, against Dean's hips.

Cas waits to cool off, for some feeling to tingle back into his toes. He wants to lie down on top of Dean and cuddle with him, exhausted and sore together, but the ropes are in the way. As much fun as bondage is, sometimes Cas finds it frustrating. He collects himself, gathers his calm, cool demeanor back up from where it lies shattered around him, puts it back on piece by piece.

It's been five minutes or more and Dean is soft inside him, still breathing long and deep but not so harshly. Slowly, Dean shifts one leg under Cas, sliding it out to the side an inch at a time – probably relieving a cramp.

“You can talk,” Cas rasps.

Dean releases another breath, nods faintly, but remains quiet.

Cas takes one last steadying breath and tenses his leg muscles to lift himself up. Dean's soft length slips out of him, followed by a rapidly cooling trickle. Every inch of his lower body protests. He can't lean forward for leverage – ropes in the way – so he leans back and to the side, awkwardly and with a great deal of muscle creakiness, and slides his legs over Dean to the edge of the mattress.

His legs shiver and his knees are watery but he stays upright. Circulation and strength return as he walks slowly around to the foot of the bed and gently takes Dean's feet, flexing his ankles and testing the bend of his knees one leg at a time. Dean complies, wiggling his toes. Cas unclasps the cuffs and lets them dangle off the edge of the bed. He moves around to where the end of the rope is tied, unknots it, starts slipping the lengths back through the hooks. The rope moves with a slippery hiss. Dean's chest and abdomen are marked with salmon-pink lines like the grill marks on a steak.

Cas drops the last of the rope to the floor by the bed with a soft thump. For once, he'll leave the cleanup for later. He moves his knee onto the bed and leans over Dean – the weakness is gone from his legs, but not the airy tingling. He undoes the leather cuffs around each of Dean's wrists with slow reverence, blowing gently on the skin to dry the built-up sweat, rubbing circulation into Dean's trembling fingers.

Completely free of all bindings except the blindfold for the first time in several hours, Dean remains still and boneless. He shivers faintly. Cas pulls the light fleece up off the floor, climbs onto the mattress next to Dean, tosses the blanket over both of them. He lies there, relaxed beyond belief, still unable to quite articulate anything, and is careful not to touch Dean's rope-sensitive chest. He finds one of Dean's hands and tangles his fingers into Dean's.

“Cas,” Dean finally says.

“Hm,” Cas murmurs, eyes half-closed.

“I think we should give up sex.”

Cas furrows his brow.

“We can't ever top that,” Dean says dreamily. “We've won sex. We beat the high score.”

“There's always a higher score,” Cas says with a faint grin.

“Dunno,” Dean sighs.

“Won't know unless we keep trying.”

Dean laughs briefly, then settles. After a moment, he says, “I can't move. Jesus H, Cas. I can't even...” He sighs.

Cas gives the side of Dean's face an embarassed, proud little grin. He can't help glowing a bit.

“I'm wired, but I could take another nap,” Dean mumbles. “I didn't imagine spending half this day asleep.”

“Then don't,” Cas says. “Dean.” Indulgently he scoots closer to Dean, who turns his blind face in Cas' direction. Cas crosses the small distance and kisses the corner of Dean's mouth with gentle chastity, careful of his lips – kissed, bitten, and fucked – which are probably tender if not outright sore. Cas puts one hand over the side of Dean's face, blocking out light, and touches the blindfold with the other.

“Day's over?” Dean asks quietly.

“No,” Cas says. “Let me break my own rules a little bit.”

Dean smiles. Cas tugs the blindfold up Dean's forehead by a couple of inches; his eyes are closed, and he keeps grinning in a Cheshire cat way. Cas huffs against his nose.

Dean cracks his eyes open. His smile goes all the way into them, in the faint crows' feet, the brightness of his gaze, his cheeks raised so high. Cas' breath catches at the sight of his uncovered face and he feels a mortifying catch in his throat, like tears might try to fight their way out. He shakes it off, feeling silly, but the warmth in his chest is undeniable.

“Hi,” Dean whispers.

Cas kisses his lips despite their tenderness. He keeps it gentle. Dean returns the gentleness, tongue hot on Cas' lip but not delving further. The parting is wet and Dean licks his own lower lip into his mouth briefly, catching saliva. “What now?” Dean asks.

Cas grins and smooths the blindfold back down over Dean's eyes. Dean laughs faintly. “Dinner and a movie?” Cas suggests.

“A movie I can't watch?”

“One you've already seen, maybe.”

Dean laughs again. “Fine,” he says. “First I gotta see if I can stand up.”

\---

Dean _is_ a little weak in the knees when he finally gets off the bed, but he lets Cas hold his arms and guide him upright and out of the room. Cas leaves him alone in the bathroom this time and he's grateful for the few minutes to collect himself. He doesn't think Cas would mind him raising the blindfold in this instance, but he leaves it on anyway: sits on the toilet, makes a mess of the sink while trying to splash his face, rinses off lube, sweat and come as best he can by feel. The blindfold is damp and cool against his eyes as he fumbles for the door. A hand touches his forearm as he steps over the threshold.

Once, he would have twitched. Uncertainty took longer to weed out than outright fear; he wouldn't have been afraid, exactly, but he would have double-checked who the owner of the hand was before allowing further reaction. Now he only grins faintly and slips his arm down to catch the hand with his own. He knows by feel that it's Cas, but it's more than just the physical – he knows by faith.

"It's a while yet until dinnertime," Cas says, "but I was thinking pizza?"

“I love you,” Dean says.

He does a few tentative stretches while Cas uses the bathroom. Every inch of his body feels well-used, hard-ridden. But he isn't wrung out; if anything he feels energized, thrumming. He feels amazing, basically. Like he could do anything.

And yet somehow contentness also follows hand in hand with stillness; his muscles thrum but he feels no need to get out of his skin, no need to leap into activity lest he explode. Cas emerges from the bathroom and brushes his hands down Dean's arms and asks, “Do you want to get dressed?”

Dean considers it, then shakes his head. Then bites his lip: second thought. He tells Cas what he wants. For the first time he feels a prickle of embarrasment, which, given the day so far, is deeply absurd. He can feel Cas smile against his neck.

Five minutes later he's in his preferred position if play takes them to the living room: on the floor in front of the sofa, legs folded loosely in front of him, head pillowed between Cas' knees and the couch cushion. He melts into Cas playing with hair and slides one thumb back and forth along the smooth finish of the panties he's just put on. They're comfortable, high-cut, silk blend, blue (he recognizes the pair by the tiny silk bow on one hip). Some pairs are difficult or impossible to fit the whole package into, but these are just right – no side-ball, no tip peeking out of the waistband. He feels safe in them, here, despite his total exposure.

Cas doesn't consult him on movie choices, but Dean recognizes the opening dialogue of Reservoir Dogs the second Mr. Brown starts rambling about Madonna. He grins and settles his head back against the cushions, watching the movie play out in the dark theater behind his eyelids, the increasing cacophany of screams and curses mellowed out by the gentle feeling of Castiel's hand teasing through his hair.

The afternoon passes in a blur. Sometimes Dean catches himself reciting dialogue, and Cas laughs at him. Sometimes Cas twists and stretches and jostles Dean around. They lose track of the movie once or twice, caught up in talking about it – and if Dean weren't on the floor at Cas's feet, wearing nothing but lingerie, he could almost forget that today isn't just like any other Saturday. But the backs of his thighs sometimes cling to the cool wooden floor, and sometimes Cas's hand strays past chaste touches to his head and brush over his lips, his throat, the regular beat of his jugular.

The movie rolls to a blood-soaked conclusion and Cas nudges Dean upright to stretch his legs and take a bathroom break.

When Dean returns, stepping cautiously down the hallway with one hand on the wall, Cas is on the phone ordering pizza. Dean beelines towards Cas's voice and replants himself on the floor, sprawling his legs to the side. He paints himself a mental image: the delivery person opening the door, hands full, to greet a perfectly tailored and formal Castiel – a classical tall, dark, and handsome – and looking beyond into the room, catching sight of a muscled six-foot man reclining, debauched, in silk panties, rope marks on his skin, blindfolded. The openly displayed plaything of the businesslike man who answered the door. In this mental image Dean tweaks himself to be hard again, ruffles his own hair to look well-fucked, imagines himself every inch the aching, moaning, gagging-for-it sub. He imagines the sight turning on the any-gender-who-cares delivery person so much that they want to stay and watch what happens next, or else need to go work it out in their company car, the smell of sex discreetly covered by the overpowering smell of pizza.

Dean can't help grinning and giggling to himself, filming his little porno in his head. The pizza guy (or girl) – a classic. He doesn't actually have an exhibitionist streak (a stranger really seeing him in silk panties would make him go limp faster than a bucket of ice water), but fantasy is different from reality.

Cas thanks the person on the other end of the phone and hangs up. “What are you laughing at?” he asks, amused.

Dean chews his lip but eventually shares, and thankfully Cas laughs along with him. “Want the pizza guy to join in?” he asks.

Dean licks his lips. “Hm. Not really. Just watch what you do to me.”

He doesn't add: because I'm proud of what you do to me. Because what you do to me is so good, it's art – because your talent should awe others. Except that this conflicts with Dean's own possessive pride in the fact that Cas' talent is all for him, only for him, and he wants to hoard it to himself selfishly. It's all fantasy, anyway: he's not the picture of debauchery, he's cozy and chill. He feels, if anything, a little frumpy, as though he's put on his comfy panties for a lazy day in, not like he's put on his fine-china panties to show off to company. He shares that analogy with Cas, too, sending Cas laughing hard enough to sound breathless.

“Well, I'm in no state to make that scene happen either,” Cas says finally. He pulls Dean's hand up to place it on Cas' stomach. “I'm not dressed up.”

The material under Dean's hand is t-shirt jersey. The pants brushing his cheek are cotton, too, probably drawstring pajamas. Cas is soft all over. Dean sighs and leans on him.

“'M wearing your clothes,” Cas murmurs.

Dean shifts, silk smoothing the slide between his ass and the floor, and slouches even further into his comfortable pose. He runs a palm over the inside of his thigh, still sensitive from slaps while he was hanging. If he could look at himself, he'd see how flushed he is.

Cas' knee nudges his head. “You can touch yourself if you want, but you'll have to finish what you start. Without help.”

Dean's hand stops. He brushes his palm along his thigh a few times, then folds his hands demurely in his lap. He isn't ready yet anyway; his stomach chooses that moment to growl. Cas laughs.

Cas sets about looking for anything worth watching on TV, finds nothing, and goes to put in another DVD. He and Dean chat like it's almost a normal evening, like Dean's sprawled on the sofa with his socked feet on the coffee table, a beer in his hand, and Cas is tired-eyed from a long week at work. Instead Dean quips and laughs his side of the conversation into darkness, guided only by the sound of Cas' voice, the feel of soft pajamas against Dean's face and shoulder.

A few minutes into Die Hard, there's a knock on the door. Dean stiffens for a second, then hesitantly reaches out for balance to stand up.

Cas touches his shoulder. “You can stay.”

Dean huffs. “I really was kidding about the fantasy thing.”

“I know,” Cas says. “The door opens the other way, remember? You can't see the couch from the front door if the door's open.”

Dean aligns his memory of everything in the living room and realizes Cas is right. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah.” He settles back down, but pulls his knees up.

“I didn't mean that you _have_ to stay... do you...?”

Dean feels the faintest possible trace of annoyance at the gentle uncertainty in Cas' voice. He smirks to cover it and says, “Go get the pizza or I'll open the door like this.”

Cas snorts and leaves. Dean sits stiffly, listening to the door open – probably only a fraction, knowing Cas; keeping the outside world _out_ as much as possible – and faint voices, rustling money, a thank-you and a goodbye. Dean isn't sure what time it is. Late afternoon, early evening?

The lock clicks on the door and footsteps retreat into silence outside. Dean releases a tension he didn't realize he'd gathered. Cas comes directly back to him – box on the coffee table, hands on Dean's knees, pushing them down and apart, and then Cas' mouth is pressed to Dean's and Dean finishes relaxing into the same gooey bliss he was in before the interruption. Cas slips his hands to Dean's hips, scoots in closer, puts a knee near enough to Dean's crotch that he can feel the ghost of pressure; fingers toying over the silk on his hips, knuckles barely brushing the the top of the contained bulge; Dean sucks at Cas' mouth greedily, even though his lips are too tender, and his body stirs in acknowledgement of Cas' touch, ready to be coaxed back into the heights and depths of pleasure.

Cas pulls back. “Thank you,” he whispers to Dean. Then, as if nothing had happened, “I'll get something to drink.”

Cas goes to the kitchen. Dean listens to the overly normal sound of him puttering around, and thinks about _'thank you.'_ He's trying to train himself out of asking 'what for?' He's trying to train himself to accept that other people appreciate him whether he thinks he deserves it or not, even things he didn't do on purpose. Maybe it was because Cas secretly wanted him to stay put and Dean guessed correctly, but – that's not how Cas is. Cas doesn't give ambiguous orders, or passive-aggressively expect Dean to anticipate what he wants, so he can punish him when he guesses wrong. He really wouldn't have minded if Dean had left the living room to feel safer.

Maybe Cas was thanking him for just... being. Appreciation _just because._ Dean still struggles with that one.

When Cas comes back and directs Dean's hands to where cold drinks are sitting on the coffee table, and hands Dean a piece of hot pizza on a paper towel, Dean chews contemplatively for a moment, and finally asks. “What was with the thanks?”

He listens to Cas swallow and think.

“For trusting me,” Cas says finally.

“Oh.” It's a simple enough answer, and it makes sense. Dean thinks back: Cas hasn't asked him to make decisions today, except when he asked _'pizza?'_ There had been a choice offered there. Dean hadn't even thought about it. He wonders – with anyone else, would he have noticed? The answer is a definitive yes. He would have frozen up, understanding that a stranger would have to come to the house. He would have said nah, casually, and that he wasn't hungry, or he would have asked what was in the fridge. He would have been aware of other people, of the outside world still existing, and he would have cared about his self-image.

He definitely wouldn't have only felt mild apprehension as he sat blindfolded on his living room floor in women's lingerie while a stranger stood not ten feet away on the other side of a wall, with an open door between them.

He takes another bite of pizza. The flavors burst like fireworks, suddenly intense in their individuality. He appreciates and savors every bite of sweet-sour tomato, oven-hot bell pepper, stringy cheese, crust soft and steaming inside a crisp exterior.

Of course Cas could have meant it in broader terms: thanking Dean for his trust throughout the whole day, for his trust in being submissive at all. As Dean eats, he gradually accepts within himself that it doesn't actually matter what Cas' thanks was for, or if it was specific or general. His appreciation makes Dean warm inside regardless. Dean doesn't have a praise kink, per se, because until recent years praise made him distinctly uncomfortable, but learning to accept praise has been its own kind of rewarding.

The drinks on the coffee table are refrigerated bottles – cold but not icy, easy for Dean to drink from without spilling. There are two bottles in front of him. By the quality of the plastic he can tell that one is water (crinkly) and one is not (rigid). He picks up the alternative and takes a swig. Gatorade, the citrus flavor he likes. Dean smiles against the bottle neck and takes another swallow. Electrolytes. Cas takes the chemistry of scening so seriously.

Cas' hand comes to rest on Dean's head again while they watch (listen) to Die Hard and Dean munches his way through another piece of pizza. He's full after two and stops, sipping his sports drink instead. He eats less than normal while scening: being overfull is too uncomfortable, with all the other potential discomforts going on any given moment, and flavors are too intense to keep eating mindlessly. In other circumstances he can easily put away an entire pizza by himself in one sitting.

He leans his head against Cas' knee and closes his eyes inside the blindfold. He hasn't been fully aware of whether he's been keeping them open or closed for most of the day – it makes no difference – but now he closes them with certainty, ignores the cloth around his face, and imagines he's just sitting here with Cas on an ordinary evening, full and dozy and watching the long-memorized visuals of Die Hard play out in his mind's eye. He really doesn't need to see it. At the appropriate moment, he recites the text on McClane's sign. “Now I have a machine gun,” he says, grinning, and sips his Gatorade.

Cas chuckles and runs his hand into Dean's hair. After a few minutes of playing with it, he says, “Lean forward.”

Dean does, peeling himself away from the sofa. He's getting stiff, finally feeling the effects of the day's exercise, especially the hanging. Both of Cas' hands find his shoulders and start massaging the kinks out.

Dean sighs and melts into it. Cas focuses in particular on the same muscles he had after the suspension – trapezius, deltoids, running his thumbs firmly down the insides of Dean's shoulder blades, drawing the stiffness out like a poison, opening Dean up. A surface shiver passes over Dean's skin. He wouldn't mind being opened up. Filled. Topping from the bottom is one of Cas-as-dom's favorite pasttimes: using Dean like a willing breathing dildo, a fucktoy for his own gratification. Dean can't argue with that; he enjoys it just as much. But he's made sure Cas knows that the opposite is appreciated, too.

The movie has another ten, fifteen minutes left to go, max, if Dean remembers correctly. He flexes under Cas' hands, going liquid and sensual inside his own skin; he isn't sure if it's night yet, but it feels like it is, like it must be, because Dean can't imagine this endless darkness of the blindfold being daytime any longer. Cas' kneading fingers encounter the collar that Dean has worn all day, which is so attuned to his skin temperature that he's nearly stopped feeling it. Cas takes it gently, turns it against Dean's neck, examining it.

“What color is it?” Dean asks quietly. He's almost inaudible over the movie.

Cas turns it back around and settles it in place again. He says nothing. Dean isn't sure if he didn't hear the question or is choosing not to answer.

Cas massages his shoulders a little longer. McClane saves the day. Gruber dies. Cas' hands creep down Dean's chest, rubbing meaningless circles into the flesh of his collar. Dean leans back against the sofa again, letting Cas drift lower, press his thumb along lines Dean can't quite follow, until he realizes that Cas is tracing where the ropes had sunk into his flesh to hold him down.

Dean releases a shuddering sigh. “Cas...”

Cas takes the bottle out of Dean's hands, says “Turn around.” Dean shuffles up onto his knees, does so, and is immediately drawn forward. Cas' hand leaves his shoulder and rustles with fabric. Dean's already eager for the job before the tip of Cas' penis even touches his lips, presented to Dean like an offering in one hand, the other splayed against the back of Dean's head.

He wets his lips and slips Cas into his mouth, humming contentedly. Again, flavor is amplified: salt bursts over his tongue, and musky bittersweet. Cas is only beginning to stir with arousal; Cas knows that bringing him up to hardness with his mouth is one of Dean's favorite things to do. Dean sets to with an internal purr, teasing Cas up until less and less of him can fit in Dean's mouth. Spit rolls down Dean's chin, trickling to his neck.

The movie crawls along to the same old ending but Dean is lost in the microcosm of the faint mobility of veins under the velvety skin against his tongue. He flattens and presses his tongue against one vein, then another, enjoying the way they slip away from him, how he has to be careful to trace one all the way to the head.

Cas' fingers finally tighten in his hair. Dean regretfully slides free, drool clinging in a connective strand. He realizes the end credits music is playing.

“Remember your friend the griffin?”

It takes Dean a moment to follow what Cas is saying. When he gets it, he laughs.

Cas pushes Dean back, scoots up to the edge of the couch, and leans over Dean for the coffee table. Some clacking and rustling of objects later, Cas says, “Hold out your hand, palm up.” Dean does, and cold gel pours into his palm. “Be ready by the time I get back,” Cas says, voice rough.

Dean shudders and slides back against the coffee table, spreading his legs. “A little help?” he asks, displaying the panties.

“Figure it out.” Cas stands and walks out.

He has to slide to the floor, lie down on the cool wood; with one hand cupping a palmful of warming lube, it takes some undignified contortion and shimmying to get the panties down left-handed. He gets them past one knee, which is enough to drop his legs open and get started.

He pushes in two fingers; three; easy. He holds a leg up, elbow crooked around his knee, and pleasures himself alone in the dark that's all he can see. The blindfold as sensory deprivation has gone beyond the early stage of titillation, the middling stage of frustration, and has become something almost invisible – he's stopped caring about the things he can't see and dissolves himself completely in other senses. It isn't that his hearing and touch have become enhanced, simply that he's paying closer attention. He keeps his eyes closed and drops his leg with his free hand, slides down to rub his perineum and cup a slick palm over his balls.

“What did I say about touching yourself?”

Dean's breath catches. He removes his hands, already missing the fullness, and puts them on the floor above his head, palms up, fingers curled.

“Good.”

Cas pads closer. Bare feet. He's standing over Dean lying naked on the living room floor, ass stretched and wet, blue silk panties clinging to one leg. Dean tries to take a steadying breath; he's already so hard that his dick bumps against his belly when he breathes deep.

Cas' foot rests on one of his knees, slides up his thigh and down between them. He pushes Dean's legs further apart. “How much already?” he asks.

Dean licks his lower lip. “Three fingers.”

“Whenever I stop, give me a word.”

Dean nods.

Cas makes him lift his hips so Cas can slide a towel under him; something soft and bundled up gets pushed under Dean's head for a pillow. “Hands where they are is fine,” Cas says quietly. “Make all the noise you need to.”

Dean sucks in a deep breath, settling his neck.

First are Cas' fingers. Warm, familiar. Dean has more calluses from his job but Cas has a few: on the top of his right ring finger where a pen rests when he's writing; on the inside of the first knuckle of his thumb. Dean can't actually feel the details but he visualizes them. The smooth, narrow scar an inch long where Cas burned his hand on a baking sheet. Two thick pinhead dots of scar tissue on the back of one hand from his childhood chicken pox. A variety of tiny scratches from roughhousing with the cats.

Cas' other hand touches his forehead, brushes his hair back. He's up to three fingers and adds a fourth with steady pressure – Dean is used to this much. “Sometimes when you're in me I wish for more,” Cas says idly, turning his fingers. “But then you fuck me so perfectly, I forget it. But you...”

His fingers withdraw and Dean clenches on nothing, curls his hands into loose fists in anticipation. Something firm and cold with fresh slick presses to his hole. He swallows and lets it in. It's a good wide stretch but not the joke griffin dildo – it's normally shaped and only above-averagely endowed. He lets out a zen breath while Cas feeds it in one slow inch at a time.

“Dean.”

Word. Yeah. “Impala,” he says. Engines roaring; green means go.

The toy, which Dean thinks he recognizes as one of their usual go-tos, slides all the way home. He tries to remember it: six inches, seven? It's deep and glorious and warm now. He clenches around it and absently rolls his hips. Cas' grip slips. “Tch,” Cas mutters, moving his hand from Dean's forehead to his neck. Cas holds him down with the implication of a chokehold, no real pressure. “Sometimes I wonder,” Cas says, starting to pump the toy back and forth, “whether you'd be interested in double penetration. I mean, the real thing – another man. Not invited into our relationship, only into our bed.”

Dean lets the words sink in; his lips part on a pant and he resists moving his hips with Cas' tempo. He's already adjusted to the dildo and the slide is easy. Cas keeps the thrusts just shallow enough to be unsatisfying.

“I've watched it,” Cas says idly. “There are only so many positions you can do it in. Personally I like to imagine lying on my back, you riding me.” He deepens the toy's angle and gives a few fast thrusts of the entire length. A shuddering breath escapes Dean, a moan caught in the depths. “And the third party behind you, mostly irrelevant. Fingering you alongside me. Fucking you alongside me.” Cas' grip shifts and the thrusting slows; the next time the dildo slides in again, Cas' finger is tucked alongside it. Dean sucks in air. Even though he's adjusted the added stretch feels exponentially larger.

“Breathe,” Cas murmurs, moving his free hand to Dean's chest, smoothing over his sternum and massaging over pecs. A gentle flick to one nipple shouldn't be so intense, but elicits a flash of pleasure and a small blurt of precome. Cas pulls back the dildo and one finger; slowly pushes it back in, this time with two.

For a split second Dean seizes tight and Cas stops where he is. Remaining in place against Dean's clenching hole requires wrist strength, Dean knows. He breathes deep and wriggles his head back against its pillow. He moans, louder than he meant to, but the sound seems to carry some of the tension out with it and he relaxes.

“Word,” Cas says.

Dean licks his lower lip. “Impala.”

Cas gently slides the toy in another inch. Relaxing is a struggle, but he keeps up.

“Give me one of your hands,” Cas murmurs. Dean lifts his right arm from above his head and shiveringly lowers it to the direction of Cas' voice. Cas takes it, brings it down between his legs. “Hold it. Don't lose that stretch or the next one will be worse.”

Dean grips the slippery end of the toy, heart pounding. Cas' fingers leave him and the toy alone feels awfully small now, like it's no preparation at all. The griffin dildo (size: large, color: ultraviolet) was a joke, but Dean chews his lip and admits to himself that he had spent a sizable chunk of time looking at all the wild designs online and picking one that didn't look impossible. All those months ago, looking at pixels on the computer screen, he'd remembered thinking that it might even be fun. Then it had arrived and he'd really seen how _big_ it was, held it and felt the weight and girth of it, and deep down in his soul he'd chickened out.

His heart thuds; he can feel the pulse in his throat, in his legs. The cap of the lube bottle clicks; he can hear the wet smearing sound of Cas' hands on the damned thing. He curls his toes up.

“Easy,” Cas murmurs to him, pulling his knee to the side. Dean didn't realize he'd raised them up again. Cas' breath and voice are suddenly closer. “Easy,” Cas breathes against his lips, and then is kissing him, and Dean kisses back in the fervent hope that Cas understands that his apprehension isn't because he doesn't want to do this. It sounds crazy – it is pretty crazy – but if Cas thinks it won't hurt him, then Dean trusts him.

Cas peels Dean's now-sticky fingers off the regular dildo and slips it out. Unexpected cold, gaping and exposed to air; Dean winces. Then fresh cool lube and silicone take up position.

For a couple of inches it feels normal, if bumpy. Then it starts to widen dramatically and the ridges deepen. Cas is going incredibly slowly, adding lube with another click as he goes. The girth exceeds the normal toy well before it reaches the same depth. Dean hisses between his teeth and Cas stops.

“Impala,” Dean says, letting out a stuttering breath. It ought to be too much but it isn't. He wants the tip to get to where the last one was, bumping his prostate and filling him up. Cas starts pushing again without a word, wiggling a little now, pumping back and in a little bit further on each thrust.

The tip isn't there yet but the stretch keeps going, it gets to _this is ridiculous_ and then _ohshitohshit_ and then even further, Dean gasping in quick moaning breaths to keep up with quelling the commands his shaking legs are telling him, _stop this what are you doing, jesus fuck no one can do this, what's wrong with you._

But it doesn't feel _bad._ He waits for the sharp pain of a tear or an agonizing cramp or for some kind of true, scorching pain to follow the pressure but it never happens. The stretch burns burns burns but the sub switch has been flipped somewhere along the way and every time the burn goes up a notch, his dick reacts with proportionate spasms of pleasure.

The tip's at his prostate and past it, the bulging absurd shaft of the toy continuously rubbing the same spot, bumping along as each ridge passes over it. Dean jerks involuntarily, moans louder than he means to, abandoning all sense of control. Wider still and beyond some psychological point of no return, Dean illogically wants more, wants it to keep going and break him apart; he can't keep still and presses down with his feet, lifting his ass off the towel, neck and shoulders strained taut with the effort of support, panting.

“Word,” Cas says, and he sounds breathless too.

“Impala, Impala,” Dean babbles.

“This,” Cas groans. “This is why I think about your limits, your extremes. All the time. Look at you...”

Dean sobs in pleasure.

“Almost,” Cas says. “Almost there.” His hand returns to Dean's neck, circling wide until his thumb and ring finger both have a pulse running strong and hot under them, and he presses in, barely, and the dildo abruptly slips past whatever wide point was burning Dean up alive and sucks inside, spearing Dean so full he yells, his hole clinging tight to the narrow end past the enormous bulge now resting inside him. He's lost all sense of true size and proportion. The thing can't be much bigger than a couple inches in girth, really, but tell that to his ass.

He gulps in breaths, wavering above the towel, lowering to the floor then pushing up again because he can _feel_ it in him, every movement a new kind of pressure. Cas' hand grips Dean's neck, no constriction but a constant firm reminder; Dean leaks onto his stomach, taut like a rubber band waiting to snap.

“Word.”

Dean tries to shape his voice around the word, but it sticks in his chest. He isn't sure what more he can take. Cas starts to turn the toy, a hint of rotation. Unthinking, Dean yelps, “Yellow!” He struggles for a breath and Cas stills.

“Sorry,” Dean breathes.

“It's all right,” Cas murmurs, hand leaving Dean's neck to smooth over his forehead and hair again. “This is enough. You said the old word. Do you remember your safeties?”

“Oh.” Dean chokes out the approximation of a laugh. “I meant banana.” Another hiccuped laugh, because banana is kind of the worst (or best) possible word for the situation, and the vibration of his own diaphragm jolts sensation through him. He lets out a shaky breath through pursed lips and deliberately makes himself lower his hips to the floor. A shivery moan escapes him.

He hears Cas shift next to him, hand vanishing from his forehead, and a moment later a wonderful warm length of body heat presses along Dean's side. Skin to skin. Cas is naked – Dean has no idea how long he has been. His cock is by Dean's hip, hard and pressing, but his mouth when it meets Dean's is gentle. Nigh-chaste kisses drive Dean nuts. Cas is particularly big on teasing Dean with first base after they've already reached fourth or fifth. Dean tries to coax more out of him and Cas merely twists the toy again. Dean groans complaint into Cas' mouth.

Cas' hand leaves the dildo and crosses over Dean's chest, holding him close. He breaks the kiss and nuzzles his nose under Dean's ear instead – the positioning is almost as if Cas were snuggling Dean in bed, ready for sleep. “How is it?” Cas asks, his voice a low purr.

Dean tips his face in Cas' direction slightly, rubbing his cheek over Cas' hair. He wants to get his hands in it, touch Cas all over, see his face again, drink him in. “'S so fuckin big,” he murmurs. “It's different.” He gives an experimental clench and almost can't stand it; he makes a small sound and Cas' grip tightens. “It's not you,” Dean says.

Cas surges up again, hand off Dean's side and onto his face, and kisses Dean like he really wants – starving, greedy, rough. All sense of tenderness or soreness has fled – it'll be doubled, tripled, later, maybe tomorrow, but now Dean is drowning in hedonism and clinging to every rough touch.

Cas moves over Dean, settles between his legs, jostling Dean and the toy and then grasping its end and giving it a tug. Dean whimpers “Impala” and rolls with it, biting his lip while Cas rotates the thing, and then Cas is bent over and sucking him down, rocking the dildo in the shallowest possible thrust, not quite pulling on it, scalding tongue working Dean's cock, laving over his balls and licking wide up to the tip then sliding back down with the most intense suction...

Dean had already been on edge and the heavy heat starts far before he's ready for it. He pants Cas' name and can't resist bringing his hands down to comb into Cas' wild dark hair, warning -

Cas tugs and twists the dildo as Dean cries out, out to the widest point, and the abrupt tight clench of orgasm helps to push. Clenching on empty, Dean gives a choked cry and shoots in Cas' mouth so hard it stuns him back against the floor, pleasure quaking through him. Cas is caught just unawares enough to make him sputter and cough, but he gamely carries on through, swallowing Dean down and cleaning him off, raising his mouth off with a rough pant and squeezing the last drop of come out with a firm hand.

“Cas -” Dean croaks.

“Word,” Cas grunts.

“Impala. You -”

Cas slides up his body, chest to chest, and Dean feels a knee against his ass before saltsour lips press to his and Cas roughs out, “Want you,” and then he's pushing inside, nowhere near as big as the stupid toy but so much warmer and more alive. Dean tries to get his legs wide and accommodating, raises one to dig his heel into Cas' back. Cas sets up a quick rhythm, barely gets it going before it's broken again, stuttering. Dean squeezes Cas' sides, digs fingers into the sliding muscle of his back, his neck and shoulders, grasps desperately at his hair, thumbs over his cheeks, temples, missing the sight of him, wanting wanting -

Dean cracks. Cas is about to come, Dean can feel it in the heaviness of his breaths, his pace and the set of his hips. Cas cries out teeth clenched and Dean finally _cracks_ – his hand falls to his face and he tugs up the blindfold, half an inch at most, one eye still mostly covered, but he gets to see Cas utterly wrecked and lost and gone, gone gone, blue light from the TV dancing over his face like candleflame in the dim room, the glint of his blue eyes catching Dean's one uncovered green as he comes, and smiles like he can't help it, laugh-gasping at Dean's cheat while he's still rocking and shivering under Dean's knees.

Cas sinks to his elbows, hardly holding himself above crushing Dean, and pushes his face against Dean's in a not-quite-kiss. Corners of lips meet, then lips on cheek, on neck, and then Cas' head is simply lowered and he's pulling in the deep breaths of afterglow.

Dean closes his eyes and breathes in tandem. After a moment he says, quiet and hoarse, “Okay, we shouldn't give up sex.”

Cas laughs into his shoulder.

Dean moves a hand to his face and pulls the blindfold into place. He touches the back of Cas' head. “Sorry,” he says.

Cas kisses the juncture of neck and shoulder. “I'll save that punishment for next time.”

“Start as you mean to go on,” Dean agrees. He lets his legs slide down, trying to stretch his back out along the hard floor. He can't quite believe they just did all this in the middle of the living room. Try not thinking about _that_ the next time company's over.

After a long moment of rest, Cas shifts upwards with a groan. “Not on the floor again,” he says, sounding pained. Dean can hear him stretching.

Dean grins. “Not _my_ fault.”

Cas tsks. Dean can hear the smile in his voice. Dean starts shifting upright as well, but Cas touches his shins. “Stay,” Cas says, quiet, warm. “I'll be back.”

So Dean slides back down and puts his hands behind his head. He realizes that the rumpled fabric serving as a pillow is Cas' shirt. Cas goes padding away; Dean idly listens to him opening doors, running water, picking up this and that. After a couple of minutes he returns and kneels by Dean, takes his hands and pulls him up. Dean barely wobbles while getting to his feet, but as soon as he's upright he realizes just how exhausted he is. He's worn out, heavy-eyed under the blindfold.

Cas leads Dean down the hallway, turns off into the bathroom. Dean could collapse into bed right this second, but as soon as he feels the hot steam start to billow out of the shower, he revises his priorities – his legs are sticky all the way down to his knees, and he's grabbed both his own hair and Cas' with lube on his hands.

The first sluice of hot water over his shoulders makes him gasp. Soreness is settling into every muscle from neck to ankles and the pounding water melts some of it away, delicious and sensual even in the absence of arousal. Cas puts his arms around his middle like they're standing for some slow waltz, and lets the water do its work without assistance. Dean puts his forehead into the crook of Cas' neck and sways minutely.

“Good day?” Cas asks eventually.

Dean kisses his shoulder. “Best.”

“Notes?”

Dean laughs faintly. “Let me get my brain cells all back first.”

Cas returns the huff and finally fetches some soap. He spends no time luxuriating, clearly just as ready for sleep as Dean is.

The house feels so still and quiet after the shower shuts off. Dean holds Cas' hand though he knows the way to the bedroom by heart. Cas directs him to the bed, sits him down, leaves for a moment then returns. The blankets are all still missing from earlier activities. Cas tells Dean to lie down as normal, then flaps the comforter out over the bed; it settles on Dean like a cloud. A corner gets in his mouth and he spits it out and shuffles around for a better position, laughing. After a moment's more work, Cas pulls back the cover on the other side and slides in next to Dean.

Dean turns towards him, wrapping arms around his husband, lover, best friend, confidante. Cas whispers “Close your eyes” and Dean does, and a second later hands are around the back of Dean's head, picking open the knot on the blindfold instead of just sliding it off. The cloth, damp from the shower, peels away from Dean's eyes, leaving a stripe of cold around his temples that Cas rubs his hands over to dry and warm.

For a moment, Dean keeps his eyes closed anyway, as if in self-punishment for his cheat earlier. Cas moves a thumb to Dean's brow and applies the mere breath of gentle pressure. Dean takes the hint and cracks his eyes open, smiling. Eyes crinkled with happiness, he murmurs, “Hey, who's this asshole?”

Cas quirks an eyebrow in mock response, in contrast to the grin on his lips.

Dean moves his hand to Cas' cheek. “My favorite thing to look at.”

“Asshole _and_ thing?”

“That's what she said.” Dean's grin widens.

Cas smooths a thumb over his brow. “So many punishments piling up,” he taunts.

“Toss me on the pile and set me on fire, then.”

Cas closes the distance. “As you wish,” he says against Dean's lips.

After an extended kiss, Dean hmms. “Using Princess Bride against me, that's unfair.”

“All's fair, etcetera.”

Dean's eyes slide closed; he wraps himself in darkness the same way he tugs the comforter closer around his shoulders. He'll get back to seeing again tomorrow. For now, touch and voice are plenty. They're the last thing that chase him into unconsciousness - the weight of Castiel's arm around him, and the sound of a final, murmured "love you."

**Author's Note:**

> First I want to point out kinks specifically NOT present: master/slave or owner/pet or any particular kind of power play, or humiliation. I wanted to do my best to write a clear Dom/sub dynamic without the things that seem to be so prevalent in fic but which still faintly squick me, even when the pair is clearly consensual. D/s without humiliation was, quite frankly, the entire goal of this fic when I started it as a plain PWP.
> 
> Kinks: Contracts purely for the sake of being SSC; rope suspension, rope restraint, a hint of breathplay, edging, and a size kink guest star in the form of a (thinly veiled Bad Dragon) griffin dildo. Long term sensory deprivation - blindfolding.
> 
> You might wonder why Cas is suddenly excellent at bondage (beyond the handwaving of 'it's been a few years'). There was actually an apocryphal Florence fic set before this one, in which Cas sets himself and Dean up to take classes with a rope bondage expert - namely, Benny. There was nothing wrong with that fic, but it began to go down the road of Cas/Dean/Benny, and I didn't think the polyamory quite suited this 'verse anymore. I may go back to it as its own thing later on, because Cas/Dean/Benny is my SPN OT3.


End file.
